The Islanders finished emptying their tank to avoid the tank days after the NBA’s Mavericks - weeks removed from going all-in by acquiring Kyrie Irving, which, to be fair, was a terrible idea - flat-out quit by benching or limiting the minutes of Irving and Luka Doncic over the final two games, when the Mavericks still had an outside chance at qualifying for the play-in tournament and avoiding the lottery. ![]() Just one, the Senators, did so in 2018-19, the season prior to the pandemic.įour Major League Baseball teams have finished with at least 100 losses in the last two seasons and seven teams are on a 100-loss pace through three weeks this season, when the bound-for-Las-Vegas Athletics might make the 120-loss 1962 Mets and 2003 Tigers look like they were World Series contenders. Six NHL teams have finished with 70 points or fewer in each of the last two seasons. Such a sentiment seems quaint in the era of the tank. But I don’t think there was any quit from players or staff, management or fanbase to count us out.” “I know we weren’t in a great position in January. “I think that’s maybe part of the reason why this one feels good,” leading scorer Brock Nelson said following the win over the Canadiens. Lamoriello, who won’t draft in the first round for the fourth straight year, then signed Horvat to an eight-year extension before he made his Islanders debut. But Lamoriello dealt Anthony Beauvillier, one of the Islanders’ few 20-something core players, and a first-round 2023 pick to the Canucks for Bo Horvat on Jan. Yet the Islanders looked like a past-its-prime team upon opening January with 11 losses in 13 games (2-8-3) and falling six points out of a playoff spot on Jan. Lamoriello made it clear he believed a disappointing 2021-22 campaign - when the Islanders finished with 84 points, 16 out of a wild card spot - was a byproduct of an unprecedented set of circumstances and not a sign the Islanders’ core was aging out. The Islanders went 24-12-4 under Doug Weight and missed the playoffs by a point. The 2016-17 team was 17-17-8, in last place in the Eastern Conference and seven points out of a playoff spot when Garth Snow fired Jack Capuano, who was not only his former college teammate at Maine but also the longest-tenured Islanders coach since Al Arbour. ![]() The Blackhawks accidentally winning a game was a reminder of how often the Islanders have been presented the opportunity to get into the tanking position. 11, when the embrace-the-tank Blackhawks upset the Penguins 5-2 to put the Islanders - who’d lost control of their playoff fate by losing to the lottery-bound Capitals 5-2 just 24 hours earlier - in a win-and-in position the next night against the Canadiens, whom they beat 4-2 on Apr. It’s a little ironic the Islanders’ opportunity to play postseason games at UBS Arena was made possible by a semi-miraculous gift they received Apr. ![]() ![]() But it’s also the embodiment of a philosophy that has served as a thread throughout the most successful period for the Islanders since the dynasty years: No tanking allowed.
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