Draft Day... Round 2

A shorter post today, with not as much anger:

The second draft day has come and gone, and was pretty successful for the Isles. They managed to pick up some promising players with all those picks, including Kirill Petrov. If they can pry him away from Russia in a couple of years, he will be a very very good player for them.
Looking back after all is said and done and the coals have cooled, I can't call this draft a success. Yes the Isles did restock the shelves of their farm system, so to speak. But they passed on some great talent to do so. I get the feeling that Islander fans will be remembering the Round One debacle in a few years when Nikita Filatov is lighting it up the score sheets for Columbus. Passing up on those four players who they traded down past is going to hurt in a few years. No question.

Also, I can't imagine any free agents are going to want to come within spitting distance of this franchise. Watch for more stop-gap moves in a week when the free agency opens up. They're not going to land any of the big names, but probably just pick up some Vasicek or Fedotanko one-year deal players to fill in spots until the Isles make the case that they're legitimately in it to win.

And, perhaps most importantly, the Islanders have done a wonderful job of alienating a whole new batch of fans. That the whole Coliseum stormed out in disgust at the draft party is a bad bad sign. It's going to be very hard for this organization to lure them back in. Attendance will probably be in the pits again this year, and had the Isles not mis-fired in the first round, that might not have been the case.

The Islanders are going to have a rough season next year. It's a damn good thing that the Islanders did stock up in the farm department. Because in order for them to lure in a superstar, not to mention a fanbase, the Islanders are going to have to build from the inside.