NHL new york Islanders

John Tavares has yet to step on the ice for the New York Islanders, but he's already making an impact for the once-proud franchise that has been aimlessly stumbling along a path of mediocrity for the past decade-and-a-half. This is, after all, a franchise that hasn't won a playoff series since David Volek beat Tom Barrasso in double-overtime way back in 1993.

Can Tavares, an 18-year-old phenom, change all of that? Well, he certainly can't hurt. Heading into Friday's NHL Entry Draft, there were rumors that the Islanders might be leaning toward either Swedish defenseman Victor Hedman or Brampton center Matt Duchene with the top pick. In the end, the team selected Tavares, and already Islanders fans are roaring their approval in the form of cold hard cash.

For many months, the first three picks of the NHL Entry Draft were expected to go this way. The only question was the order.

Center John Tavares and defenseman Victor Hedman were the top two players in this draft, no matter how you try to rate players. OHL star Matt Duchene joined them as the consensus third pick in the months before the draft. Right off the start Friday night, things played out as expected, as the New York Islanders, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Colorado Avalanche stayed put and made the first three selections.

It's officially the offseason, meaning the time is right to look into the future. We continue our division-by-division preview of the potential wheeling and dealing with the Atlantic Division.

It will be an interesting summer for the five teams in the Atlantic. Four teams made the playoffs, including the eventual Stanley Cup champion, and the one team that didn't make it -- the New York Islanders -- holds the first pick in Friday's draft, which isn't a bad consolation prize. All around it was a pretty successful season for these five teams.

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.

Some of the biggest stories around the NHL these days that don't involve the words "Stanley" or "Cup" center around the NHL draft, which takes place later this month. The Islanders won the right to the first overall pick at the lottery in April and are now faced with a tough choice. They can take a young stud like John Tavares, Victor Hedman or Matt Duchene, or they can trade the pick. Tavares is predicted to be the best player available and today cleared the air about where he would like to start his NHL career.

It's no secret that the Islanders have been an organization that has been bleeding money for years. But, until recently, owner Charles Wang has not spoken out about it, taking the high road and keeping quiet while the Islanders' best hope to save the franchise -- a large-scale redevelopment of the Coliseum and surrounding area -- has been caught up in Long Island's political circus.

Speaking to Newsday this week, Wang dropped what is, by his standards, a bombshell regarding his feelings on ownership.

No, it isn't a summer movie blockbuster, but a storm is brewing off the shores of Long Island and it's going to make a direct hit on land in the coming months. The New York Islanders and the Nassau Coliseum are at the eye of the storm. By the time the team takes the ice again in October, we'll be able to assess the damage.

For the first time in recent memory, the Islanders have a chance to significantly change their fortunes for the better in one fell swoop. However, if they make the wrong choices, they could set the franchise back a decade or possibly to Kansas City, Hamilton or Parts Unknown.

The NHL Lottery is a serious exercise in television programming. It takes an event that could be completed in less than five minutes and stretches it out into a 30 minute program that makes the jitters that much worse for the fanbases and teams involved.

That doesn't mean the Draft Lottery live on TSN Tuesday night was a bad thing, though. TSN did a nice job filling the other 25 minutes with interviews, prospect analysis and John Tavares vs. Victor Hedman hype tonight. But, at the end of the day, all we came to find out is the answer to the question "who will pick No. 1?"

When the NHL hosts its draft lottery on Tuesday night, the highest the Maple Leafs can land is the third overall pick. That's two picks too late to select John Tavares, the consensus No. 1 pick who will go to either the Islanders or Lightning.

But you can get anything you want if you want it bad enough, and Toronto GM Brian Burke wants Tavares. Badly.

That's why Burke is making no qualms about his plans: when the ordering of picks sorts itself out through the lottery, and he knows where his team picks and who has the first-overall selection, he will do whatever he can to try to land that pick and, by proxy, Tavares.

The New York Islanders, playing without Trent Hunter, Kyle Okposo, Dean McAmmond, and Andy Hilbert were simply in over their heads on Tuesday night against the runaway locomotive that is the Carolina Hurricanes, falling 9-0. Amazingly, the score isn't the most incredible series of numbers to come out of this game.

Honestly, we haven't seen a hockey game this one-sided since the Slovakia Women's National Team annihilated Bulgaria, 82-0, earlier this year. OK, maybe it wasn't quite that bad.