9. John Tavares
Games: 669
Goals: 272
Goals/Game: 0.407
Look, I know what he did and how things went down. But it’s impossible to deny how good John Tavares was while he was here.
From the moment the Islanders drafted him first overall in 2009, John Tavares scored a ton of goals. Just like Brent Sutter and Benoit Hogue before him, Tavares was consistent. In his nine seasons with the team, he never scored fewer than 24 goals in a season. The only years he hit 24 was his rookie season and the 13-14 season that was cut short due to an injury he picked up at the Olympics.
His best goal-scoring year (for the Islanders) was 2014-15 where he put up 38 goals in 82 games. He’d finished third in Hart Trophy voting that year.
John Tavares was a lot of things and being a consistent goal scorer was certainly one of them.
10. Matt Moulson
Games: 304
Goals: 118
Goals/Game: 0.388
It’s kind of fitting that Matt Moulson comes after John Tavares on this list. Mainly because you wouldn’t think that Matt Moulson would belong on this list until you consider he played the vast majority of his Islanders career on John Tavares’s wing.
From 2009 to 2013 Moulson scored 118 goals over 304 games with the Islanders. In the four full seasons with the team, Moulson put up no less than 30 goals in three. The only season he didn’t was the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season where he scored 15 in 47 games.
Moulson was very much a product of Tavares. After he left via trade to the Buffalo Sabres that became abundantly clear. He was a fine NHL’er, but without Tavares, he wasn’t a top-line 50-60 point player in the NHL.
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Honorable Mentions:
How about some players that just fell short of the list or who were eliminated from the list for whatever reason? Here are some of the other greatest goal scorers in Islanders history with the number of games they played, goals scored, and goals/game.
- Shawn Evans: 0.500 G/GP (2 GP, 1 G)
- Wendel Clark: 0.414 G/GP (58 GP, 24 G)
- Ray Ferraro: 0.367 G/GP (316 GP, 116 G)
- Thomas Vanek: 0.362 G/GP (47GP, 17 G)
- Michel Bergeron: 0.36 G/GP (25GP, 9 G)