….Nothing, Really?

After the Andy Sutton trade the Islanders seemed poised to be big-time sellers at today’s deadline with teams interested in Martin Biron, Dwayne Roloson, and some others, even Sean Bergenheim. But at the end of a very un-eventful trade deadline every last one of them boarded the plane to Atlanta for tomorrow’s game against the Thrashers.

I’ll admit that I was hoping that the Islanders could pull off a trade for Roloson and Biron and hopefully get back a 2nd and 3rd round pick. But for whatever reason the offers weren’t there. And its not like the teams that were looking for goaltender help got it elsewhere, neither Washington, Philadelphia, nor Chicago picked up any goalies. In fact the only goaltenders that moved were minor ones, Joey MacDonald to Anaheim ffor a seventh round pick, and a Vesa Toskala/Curtis McElhinney backup-goalie swap between Anaheim and Calgary.

Whatever these teams reasons teams seemed very tight with draft picks this year. After a season where the Islanders got a first-round pick  for Chris Campoli, the fact they couldn’t get a second for a potential difference-making veteran goalie like Roloson is puzzling. Especially when you look how the past two days defenseman for 2nd round pick trades were happening everywhere.

Don't Worry Islander fans 2015 is right around the corner

But kudos to GM Garth Snow for not just making a trade for its own sake (Islander fans saw plenty of that with Mike Milbury). Dwayne Roloson is a great fit for this team and having him around next year at a reasonable price means that if the Islanders decide to actually use their cap space in the off-season (meaning Wang opens the wallet) they can focus it on their other needs. The idea at this trading deadline was to try to put together some more picks to bring some more young talent into the system, and while the results weren’t great 5 picks in the first three rounds isn’t bad.

The rest of the trade market wasn’t anymore exciting as the biggest names getting moved were Raffi Torres(to Buffalo) and Eric Belanger(to Washington). For a day that saw a record 30 trades made nothing really happened to change the playoff landscape. The strong got a little stronger (Pittsburgh, Washington) and none of the many teams fighting for playoff spots did anything to really tip the scales in their favor.

So now with the trade (non)excitement over with the Islanders have 19 games left in this season to see how their young players can play. Don’t expect this to be the end of the Islanders roster moves since they won’t be able to get all of their young players on the team unless they put some veterans on waivers. This team won’t make the playoffs this year, and probably not next year. Expect them to keep compiling picks as Charles Wang is not going to spend money on this team until there is a deal for a new arena in place, and who knows when that will happen. The rebuilding process will continue to be slow, but at least the Islanders seem to have a direction for once.