New York Islanders: Five Reasons 2018-19 Season Will be a Failure

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UNIONDALE, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 16: Matt Martin #17 of the New York Islanders and Mikhail Vorobyov #46 of the Philadelphia Flyers collide during the first period during a preseason game at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on September 16, 2018 in Uniondale, New York. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Being Tough Isn’t Enough

Being tough to play against, is what management and coaching staff want from its players. They need to be accountable and responsible on the ice. We’ve heard it since day one and we’ll hear it for a long time still.

Accountability and responsibility are the two pillars that Lou is going to rebuild this organization on.

Based on the lineup they’re icing this season, the idea of being tough to play against is going to involve being tight checking, grinding, and a borderline trap type of hockey. It is a Lou Lamoriello team after all. But it’s also 2018. Hockey isn’t played that way anymore.

Maybe it can be successful. But with the amount of speed and skill that is in the league today, it’s hard to imagine that a grind it out team can be successful by any measure of the word.

We all know that the key for breaking the “trap” is speed. The one resounding element of today’s game is speed. Everything about the NHL is much faster than it was ten or 20 years ago. A grind it out team will have little success in 2018.

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These are obviously some of the worst-case scenarios. But they aren’t very farfetched. It’s easy to see any of these actually happening.

Even if 2018-19 is a failure though, it means that the New York Islanders get a better chance at drafting Jack Hughes and that not a bad thing at all.