The Olympic Break: Time for Reflection

Robert Mayer-USA TODAY Sports

With the Olympic break upon us, I thought a reflection was in order.

When the 2013-2014 season started we were all still running off of the adrenaline of last season’s playoff run against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Our friends told us to “Shut. Up. Already.” and despite hating the cold more than your college geometry call at 8am on Tuesdays (I KNOW WHAT A TRIANGLE IS JUST GIVE ME THE TEST) none of us could wait for October to roll around.

Then it did.

October started off like one of your favorite ice cream flavors, it was good for the most part but occasionally your teeth got too cold and the container is always too small. But, it was still October. No love lost. However, this feeling of “meh” was followed by what I can only compare to the taste of kale smoothies, or what we like to say in Islanders country, November.

Oh November.

From November 2nd until the wee-hours of the morning Wednesday December 11th  (EST,) the Islanders won three (3) games.

Three, like the number of beers you tell yourself you’ll have on Friday night.

Three, like how many ego waffles it really takes to have a somewhat decent breakfast.

Three, like the amount of socks you own without holes in them.

Then it was over. Our Islanders came out of it and played somewhat decent hockey, even going on a bit of a run that was as good as 8-2-0. Now, we’re back to November lows, nearly reversing the aforementioned “run” having gone 3-7-0 in their last 10 leading up to the Olympic break.

I tried to be funny in this post because, well, what else is there? I’m a life long Islander fan enduring yet another season of looking to the draft. I’ve caught myself after New Years not having a ton to say about the team. As a blogger on this site, I couldn’t think of content making me feel very uninvolved in a game that plays a huge role in my life.

Anyway, the Islanders still had a lot of work to do and, despite their solid run beating some very good teams, they were not consistent enough against teams they needed to beat. When I’ve watched the last few games, I haven’t felt that passion I did early in the season or even during the 2013 campaign to the point where half way through the game against Calgary, I turned the game off. I wasn’t interested. The news of Thomas Vanek and later Andrew MacDonald rejecting contract offers brought back to the forefront that the Islanders just aren’t a contender this season.

Do I think they could go on a run and challenge for a playoff spot? It’s up in the air. It gets harder to do with each passing loss, but it’s not impossible. It all depends on when Vanek and MacDonald go and who they get in return.

It’s a hard pill to swallow and, with each passing season of being in the draft lottery, that pill only gets bigger.