NHL Draft Preview: New York Islanders

Over the next week, FanHouse will preview the top players and teams in next Friday's NHL Draft. This is the first post in a six part series.

The New York Islanders had an abysmal 2008-09 season, falling to last place in November and hanging on with ease throughout the rest of the season. For their efforts, and by way of the draft lottery, they were awarded the first overall pick in this summer's draft. Islander fans everywhere are holding their breath, afraid that their team will, somehow, mess this opportunity up.

Mike Milbury is gone but the memories of his draft day antics are still fresh in the minds of Islander fans. It seemed like almost every season under his watch the Isles were making some kind of big, attention grabbing splash at the draft. However, they were rarely rewarded for it, as Milbury never had the patience to develop talent. Rick DiPietro and Sean Bergenheim were the only two first round picks from Milbury's regime to play on Long Island last season.

That has changed since Garth Snow took over as GM. Snow has stuck to his plan to working on the draft and developing talent. Two of the Islanders' best forwards, Kyle Okposo and Josh Bailey, are first round picks of the post-Milbury regimes. This summer, we will see what Snow's staff is made of, as the Islanders have five selections in the first two rounds and seven in the first three.

Previous First Round Selections
2008, No. 9: Josh Bailey
2006, No. 7: Kyle Okposo
2005, No. 15: Ryan O'Marra
2004, No. 16: Petteri Nokelainen

Organizational Needs
A team that finishes dead last in the NHL with such ease has a lot of needs, but the Islanders have three glaring ones. The first is a finisher, a scoring forward that can play on the wing of Bailey for the forseeable future and give the team a serious offensive threat. The second is a big, tough defender. Despite trading Chris Campoli at the trade deadline last season, the Islanders are loaded top to bottom with small, puck moving defensemen, and need a big presence to diversify the group. An,d finally, they could use a co-starting goaltender to share the load with the oft-injured DiPietro.

What's the Plan?
Luckily for the Islanders, they can fill one of their top two needs with the first overall pick. Both forward John Tavares and defenseman Victor Hedman would fit comfortably into their plans. Whichever one they go with, there have been rumors that they would fill their other need by moving up in the draft with their later selections,shipping off a package of picks to move up into the middle of the first round. That's probably the best strategy, trying to fill two dire needs with one draft.