The 5 most devastating injuries in NY Islanders history

John Tavares 2014 Winter Olympic Games: Torn MCL and Meniscus

The 2013-14 campaign was a lost season, to say the least for the New York Islanders. A big reason for that was the lack of overall talent on the team, along with a few players who openly did not want to be there any more such as Thomas Vanek and Andrew MacDonald. The biggest reason, however, was when John Tavares suffered a torn MCL and meniscus in his right knee during the 2014 Winter Olympics while playing for Team Canada. Considering most of those games were shown early in the morning in the Eastern Time zone, this was a brutal wake-up for many young Islanders fans who just lost their best player for the year.

At the time, Tavares was third in the NHL in goals and points and was having what still remains as his best season points-per-game wise to this day, with 24 goals and 66 points in 59 games. The Islanders would end up waiving the white flag by the trade deadline and decided to sell players on expiring deals, specifically MacDonald and Vanek. When looking closer at the Vanek acquisition, the Isles acquired him from the Buffalo Sabres in an attempt to put a star winger next to Tavares, albeit with Vanek being past his prime, and they traded a first and second-round pick along with Matt Moulson, who made a name as one of JT's best linemates on Long Island. The Isles then sold Vanek for basically just a second-round pick at the deadline, making this a massive disaster for New York.

Making this situation even more of a disaster is the fact that the Islanders finished with the 5th worst record in the NHL that season, landing them the 5th overall pick in the 2014 NHL draft. They ended up selecting Michael Dal Colle with that pick, who now no longer plays in the league and never lived up to anywhere near his potential. Catastrophic injury to say the least in recent memory.