Isles Player Moves Big Reason For Tough Start

My Thoughts On The Islanders Struggles And What Caused Them
The life of an Islanders fan is never easy, but this year has been particularly hard. Towards the end of last year it looked as though the NY Islanders were turning a corner and with another summer of development and maturation, the playoffs in 2011-12 seemed realistic. As I am sure you all know it has not gone according to plan, at least not thus far. The unfortunate part of this season has been that a majority of the teams younger players that were thought to be big pieces of the "core" have regressed considerably. I mean during the off-season many Isles fans were expecting Kyle Okposo to possibly be named captain, yet now those same fans think he should be moved. There is no doubting that he has not lived up to expectations this year, but its not only him. Josh Bailey, although he has played a bit better as of late, has been a big disappointment, Blake Comeau has been horrible, Frans Nielsen looks like a completely different player, Andrew MacDonald has been playing like a bottom-pairing defenseman at-best, and the list goes on-and-on. Honestly there has only been two players who have been good this season. That list includes John Tavares and Matt Martin...yup that is it. No one else has been living up to what was expected. My personal opinion on this whole fiasco is that there is many reasons why this season has been a failure, but the most predominant are the roster moves that were made during the off-season. Its pretty obvious that Garth Snow had a terrible summer, he brought in veterans, but aside from Steve Staios (which was really lucky IMO), each and every one was known to be way past their prime. He made no additions to the club that made the team better, no first line winger for John Tavares, no top-four defenseman, and no legitimate second line center. While those needs went unaddressed, he let a few major pieces of the team's heart from last season walk out. Zenon Konopka was undoubtedly the heart and soul in that locker room and his optimism did wonders for the young Islanders. Yet he let him leave and replaced him with Marty Reasoner, who has the worst plus/minus on the team with a minus-13 and only has one point. He has been one of the worst players for the Islanders, and he provides no physicality at all. Another player who was a big part of the teams feisty new culture from last season, Micheal Haley, was cut and started the season in Bridgeport. Now I don't know about you, but from that alone I could easily tell that it would create a big problem as it left the Islanders lacking that leadership in the room and that feisty physicality on the ice that the team became so well known for at the end of last season. I am a fan of Garth Snow, but you have to question many of his decisions he made during the 2011 off-season because I think its fairly obvious that a large portion of them are directly to blame for the rough start so far.