New York Islanders

The New York Islanders are a professional ice hockey team that plays in the NHL that is based in Uniondale, a hamlet located on Long Island in Town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York, United States.
The team is a member of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Islanders began play in 1972 and rapidly developed a dominant team that won four consecutive Stanley Cup championships in the early 1980s. They play their home games at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Franchise history

1970-74: The NHL Comes to Long Island
With the impending start of the World Hockey Association in the fall of 1972, the upstart league had plans to place its New York team in the brand-new Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Nassau County. However, Nassau County officials did not consider the WHA a major league and wanted nothing to do with the upstart New York Raiders. The only legal way to keep the Raiders out of the Coliseum was to get an NHL team to play there, so William Shea, who had helped bring the New York Mets to the area a decade earlier, was pressed into service once again. Shea found a receptive ear in league president Clarence Campbell, who did not want the additional competition in the New York area. So, despite having expanded to 14 teams just two years before, the NHL hastily awarded a Long Island-based franchise to clothing manufacturer Roy Boe, owner of the American Basketball Association's New York Nets. A second expansion franchise was awarded to Atlanta (the Flames) at the same time to balance the schedule. The new team was widely expected to take the Long Island Ducks name used by an Eastern Hockey League franchise; the more geographically expansive "New York Islanders" came largely as a surprise. The fledgling Islanders, who were soon nicknamed the Isles by the local newspapers, had an extra burden to pay in the form of a $4 million territorial fee to the nearby New York Rangers.
While the Islanders secured veteran forward Ed Westfall from the Boston Bruins in the 1977 NHL Expansion Draft, junior league star Billy Harris in the 1972 NHL Amateur Draft, and a few other respectable players, several other draftees jumped to the WHA. Unlike most other expansion teams' general managers, Islanders' GM Bill Torrey didn't make many trades for veteran players in the early years. Rather than pursue a "win now" strategy of getting a few veterans to boost attendance (a tactic which proved disastrous for many teams in the long run), Torrey was committed to building through the draft.
In the team's first season, young players such as goaltender Billy Smith (the team's second pick in the expansion draft) and forwards Bob Nystrom and Lorne Henning were given chances to prove themselves in the NHL. However, this young and inexperienced expansion team posted a record of 12-60-6, one of the worst in NHL history.
The team who finished last in 1972-73 received the right to pick first in the 1973 amateur draft and select junior superstar defenseman Denis Potvin, who had been touted "as the next Bobby Orr" when he was 13. Despite several trade offers from Montreal Canadiens GM Sam Pollock, Torrey refused to part with the pick. That same summer, Torrey made perhaps the most critical move in the history of the franchise when he convinced former St. Louis Blues coach Al Arbour to come to Long Island. Even with Potvin, who won the Calder Memorial Trophy as NHL Rookie Of The Year, the team still finished last in the East in its second year. Under Arbour, the team showed signs of respectability. Although the team did not make the playoffs, they allowed 100 fewer goals than the previous season, and their 56 points represented a healthy 26-point improvement from the previous season. It turned out to be the team's last losing season for 15 years.

1974-79: Ascendency
In 1975, the Islanders made one of the biggest turnarounds in NHL history. Led by Potvin, forwards Harris, Nystrom, Clark Gillies, and goaltenders Smith and Glenn "Chico" Resch, the Islanders earned 88 points — 32 more than the previous season, and two more than their first two seasons combined — and earned their first playoff berth. They stunned the rival New York Rangers in a best-of-3 first-round series. The Islanders won the series in the third game as J.P. Parise scored just 11 seconds into the extra session.
In the next round, an even bigger surprise occurred. Down three games to none in the best-of-seven series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Islanders rallied to win the next four and take the series. Only two other major North American professional sports teams have accomplished this feat, the 1941-42 Toronto Maple Leafs and the 2004 Boston Red Sox. In the third round of the playoffs, the Islanders nearly did it again, rallying from another 3-0 deficit to force a seventh game against the defending Stanley Cup champion Philadelphia Flyers before the Flyers took the decisive seventh game at home and went on to win the Stanley Cup.
The Islanders continued their stunning climb up the NHL standings in 1975-76, earning 101 points, the fifth-best record in the league. It was the first 100-point season in Islanders history, in only their fourth year of existence. Few teams in any sport have come so far so fast. Centerman Bryan Trottier, who scored 95 points and won the Calder Trophy, was blossoming into a superstar. It would be the first of four consecutive 100-point seasons, including the first two division titles in franchise history.

Postseason Disappointments
However, regular-season success was not rewarded in the playoffs. In 1976 and 1977, the Islanders were knocked out in the semifinals by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens. The Canadiens were 24-3 in the playoffs in those two years — all three losses to the Islanders.
In the 1977 NHL Amateur Draft, Torrey had the 15th pick and had to make a tough decision between right winger Mike Bossy and another forward. Bossy was known as a scorer who wasn't physical, while the other forward could check but wasn't very good offensively. Coach Arbour persuaded Torrey to pick Bossy, figuring it was easier to teach a scorer how to check. In the upcoming 1978 season, Bossy became the third Isle to win the Calder Trophy, having scored 53 goals that season, at the time the most scored by a rookie. The team was upset in the quarterfinal round in overtime of game 7 by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
In 1978-79, the team finished with the best record in the NHL. Bryan Trottier was voted the league MVP and captured the scoring title, while sophomore Bossy scored 69 goals, which also led the league. Despite their regular season dominance, the Islanders exited the playoffs with a loss to the hated New York Rangers in the semifinals. Hockey professionals and journalists generally regarded the Rangers as an inferior team, which led them to question whether the Islanders were capable of winning big games in the playoffs when they really counted.
Off the ice, the Islanders were on shaky ground. Boe was losing money on both the Islanders and the Nets even as the Islanders quickly surged to NHL prominence and the Nets became an ABA power. The Islanders were still far behind on the $10 million they had paid in startup costs, and the expenses associated with moving the Nets to the NBA threw Boe's finances into a tailspin. Eventually, Boe was forced to sell both his teams. He readily found a buyer for the Nets, but had less luck finding one for the Islanders. Torrey orchestrated a sale to one of the team's limited partners, John O. Pickett Jr., who made Torrey team president. Soon after buying the Islanders, Pickett signed a very lucrative cable contract with the fledgling Sportschannel network. SportsChannel's owner, Charles Dolan, thought the up-and-coming team would be a perfect centerpiece for his new network. Dolan gave Pickett a long-term guaranteed contract intended to not only keep the team on Long Island, but give area governments an incentive to renew his cable contracts. The Islanders have been on the network, now known as Fox Sports Net New York, for over a quarter-century.

1980-84: The Dynasty Years
After the Isles' regular season dominance and playoff disappointment in 1979, Arbour decided that he would no longer concern himself too greatly with his team's finish in the regular season. Instead, he focused his team's energy on how they would perform in the playoffs. In 1980, the Islanders dropped below the 100-point mark for the first time in five years, earning only 91 points. However, they finally broke through and won the Stanley Cup.
Before the playoffs, Torrey made the difficult decision to trade longtime and popular veterans Billy Harris and defenceman Dave Lewis to the Los Angeles Kings for second line center Butch Goring. Goring's acquisition was acknowledged as bringing in the "final piece of the puzzle", as he was a strong two-way player, ensured that opponents would no longer be able to focus their defensive efforts on the Isles' first line of Bossy, Trottier, and Clark Gillies. Contributions from new teammates, such as wingers Duane Sutter and Anders Kallur, and stay-at-home defensemen Gord Lane and Olympic champion Ken Morrow also figured prominently in the Islanders' playoff success.
In the semi-finals, the Isles faced the Buffalo Sabres, who had finished second overall in the NHL standings. They won the first two games in Buffalo, including a 3-2 victory in Game 2 on Bob Nystrom's goal in double overtime. They went on to win the series in six games and reach the Finals for the first time in franchise history, where they would face the NHL's regular season champions, the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers had gone undefeated for a North American professional sports record 35 straight games (25-0-10) during the regular season. In Game 1 in Philadelphia, the Isles won 4-3 on Denis Potvin's power-play goal in overtime. Leading the series 3-2, they went home to Long Island for Game 6. In that game, original Islander Bob Nystrom continued his overtime heroics, scoring at 7:11 of the extra frame, on assists by John Tonelli and Lorne Henning, to bring Long Island its first Stanley Cup. It was the Isles' sixth overtime victory of the playoffs. Bryan Trottier won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Torrey's strategy of building through the draft turned out very well; nearly all of the major contributors on the 1980 champions were home-grown Islanders.
The Islanders dominated the next two seasons. Bossy scored 50 goals in 50 games in 1981, and the Islanders knocked off the Minnesota North Stars in five games to win their second Cup, with Butch Goring winning the Conn Smythe Trophy.
In 1981-82 the Islanders won a then-record 15 straight games en route to a franchise-record 118 points, while Mike Bossy set a scoring record for right wingers with 147 points in an 80 game schedule. The Islanders won both the regular-season title and the Stanley Cup, this time over the Vancouver Canucks in a four-game sweep. Memorably, Bossy was up-ended by a check from Tiger Williams and tumbling in the air, parallel to the ice, when he managed to hook the puck with his stick and score. Bossy netted the Stanley Cup-winning goal and was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy.
Though the Islanders had won three straight Stanley Cups, more attention was being paid to the upstart Edmonton Oilers, whose young superstar Wayne Gretzky had just shattered existing scoring records[. The 1982-83 season was thus a battle to decide which was the best team in the NHL. Though the Oilers won the regular season championship, the Islanders swept them in the championship finals to win their fourth straight Cup, holding Gretzky without a goal during the series. Billy Smith was named the Most Valuable Player of the Playoffs after shutting down the Oilers' vaunted scoring machine. Bossy again scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal.
The Isles finished the 1983-84 regular season tied atop the Prince of Wales Conference while successfully defending their Patrick Division title. They won a hard fought series with the Rangers in the opening round of the playoffs, nicknamed the Battle of New York. It was the fourth consecutive season that the Isles had beaten the Rangers en route to the Finals. This time, however, they were dethroned in five games by the Oilers' offensive juggernaut. For the 1984 postseason, the NHL changed the schedule for the finals, from 2-2-1-1-1 to 2-3-2. Under this format, the Islanders, who had earned home ice advantage in the series (despite finishing lower than the Oilers in the regular season), had to play three straight games in Edmonton, where the Oilers managed to lock up the series. Bossy said afterward that the team believed that if they could win a single away game, they would have been able to win games six and seven at home to win the cup.
Out of their two home games, the Islanders had lost game one 1-0 in what was a goaltending duel between Billy Smith and Grant Fuhr, though they roared back with a 6-1 win in game two. The three games in Edmonton were a disaster, as the Islanders lost 7-2, 7-2, and 5-2. Bossy, who had scored 17 goals in each of the past three playoffs only scored 8 in the first three rounds of the 1984 playoffs and was silenced during the final series. Though the Islanders' bid for a record-tying fifth championship was ended, Game Five was noted for rookie Pat LaFontaine's emergence as he scored two third period goals in 38 seconds to cut the Oilers' lead to 4-2.
During their run of four Stanley Cup championships and a fifth finals appearance, the Islanders won 19 straight playoff series, the longest streak in the history of professional sports (one more than the Boston Celtics' 1959-67). Unlike the 1976-79 Montreal Canadiens who only needed to win three series in the 1976 and 1977 playoffs under the playoff format in place at that time, the Islanders had to win four series in each of their Stanley Cup seasons.

1984-91: Post-Dynasty and the Easter Epic
The Isles generally remained competitive for the rest of the decade, even as some of the stars from the Cup teams began departing. As the decade wore on, Pickett began to keep the money from the team's cable deal rather than reinvest it in the team as he had done in years past. Although it didn't become clear immediately, the lack of funds limited Torrey's ability to replace all of the departing talent.
However, in the 1984-85 NHL season, they slipped to third in the Patrick Division and could do no better in the 1985-86 and 1986-87 seasons. The Isles were now facing stiff competition from their division rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers and Washington Capitals; they suffered 1985 and 1987 second round playoff elimination at the hands of the eventual finalist Flyers, while the 1986 sweep by the Capitals marked the Isles' first exit without winning a playoff round since 1978.
In 1986, Nystrom retired and Clark Gillies was picked up on waivers by the Buffalo Sabres. Arbour retired as coach following 1985-86 and was replaced by longtime junior hockey coach Terry Simpson. Young players such as Pat LaFontaine, Patrick Flatley, and Brent Sutter, who had been viewed as the future of the team, began coming into their own as players.
During the first round of the 1987 playoffs against the Washington Capitals, the Isles had fallen behind in the series three games to one. In previous years, the Capitals would have won the series, but 1987 marked the first season that the opening round of the playoffs was a best-of-7 series, not a best-of-5 series. The Isles evened the series, which set the stage for one of the most famous games in NHL history: the "Easter Epic". Kelly Hrudey stopped 73 shots on a goal while Pat LaFontaine scored at 8:47 of the fourth overtime--and at 1:56 am on Easter Sunday morning. The win came even though the Islanders had been outshot 75-52. The Islanders were beaten in seven games by the Flyers in the second round of the playoffs. Chronic back pain forced Mike Bossy to retire after the 1986-87 season.
The next year, in 1988, the Islanders captured another division title but were upset in the first round of the playoffs by the New Jersey Devils. After the '88 playoffs, Denis Potvin retired holding records for most career goals (310), assists (742) and points (1052) by a defenseman.
Around this time, the Islanders' run of good luck in the draft began to run out. Of their four top draft picks from 1987 to 1990, the Islanders lost one to a freak knee injury and two others never panned out.
A year after winning the division, the Islanders got off to a slow start in the 1988-89 season, winning only seven of their first 27 games. Torrey fired Simpson and brought Arbour back. Unfortunately, Arbour couldn't turn things around, and the Islanders finished with 61 points, tied with the Quebec Nordiques for the worst record in the league. It was the Islanders' first losing season and first time out of the playoffs since their second year of existence. Goalie Billy Smith, the last remaining original Islander, retired after the season.
Not long after the end of the 1988-89 debacle, Pickett moved to Florida and turned over day-to-day operations over to a committee of fourLong Island entrepreneurs--Ralph Palleschi, Steve Walsh, Bob Rosenthal and Paul Greenwood. In return, they each bought a 2.5 interest in the team.
In 1989-90, the Islanders rebounded to get back in the playoffs, but they lost to the Rangers in five games. The team bought out the remaining years of Bryan Trottier's contract, and he signed on as a free agent for the Pittsburgh Penguins in the off-season.
The next year, the team finished well out of the playoffs after winning only 25 games.

1991-95: New Faces and the Miracle of 1993
LaFontaine, the Islanders' remaining superstar, was frustrated with the team's lack of success and the progress of his contract negotiations, and held out rather than report to camp before 1991-92. In response to the holdout, Torrey engineered a rebuilding project with two blockbuster trades on October 25, 1991. He dealt Lafontaine, Randy Wood, and Randy Hillier (along with future considerations) to the Buffalo Sabres in return for Pierre Turgeon, Benoit Hogue, Uwe Krupp, and Dave McLlwain. He also sent longtime captain Brent Sutter and Brad Lauer to the Chicago Blackhawks for Steve Thomas and Adam Creighton. With these additions and a talented core of players such as Derek King, Ray Ferraro, and Patrick Flatley along with incoming Soviet-bloc players Vladimir Malakhov and Darius Kasparaitis, the Islanders had a new foundation in the early '90s. However, the management committee was not nearly as patient as Boe and Pickett had been, and forced Torrey to resign after the Islanders missed the playoffs again that season. Assistant GM Don Maloney was hired in Torrey's place, while Torrey quickly resurfaced with the expansion Florida Panthers.
In Maloney's first year, 1992-93, the Islanders rebounded to make the playoffs, in the process surpassing the 80-point mark for the first time in six years. The LaFontaine-Turgeon trade proved successful for both the Islanders and Buffalo Sabres as both players hit career highs in points and Turgeon won the Lady Byng Trophy.
Unheralded Ray Ferraro and Steve Thomas emerged as playoff heroes, with Ferraro scoring a pair of overtime winners in the first round series against the Washington Capitals. Instead of celebrating after winning the decisive sixth game at Nassau Coliseum, however, the Islanders were both irate and despondent. Turgeon, the team's star center and leading scorer, suffered a shoulder separation when Dale Hunter checked him from behind as he celebrated a series-clinching goal. Turgeon was believed to be out for the entire second round, if not longer. Hunter received a then-record 21-game suspension.
The Islanders' next opponent, the Pittsburgh Penguins, were twice-defending Stanley Cup champions and full of stars such as Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, and Ron Francis. The Penguins had roared through the regular season with 119 points, and were overwhelmingly favored to win a third championship. Jim Smith of Newsday, Long Island's hometown newspaper, predicted that with Turgeon on the sidelines, the Penguins would sweep the Islanders out of the playoffs. However, on the strength of outstanding goaltending from Glenn Healy and contributions from all four lines, the Islanders achieved a huge upset when David Volek scored at 5:16 of overtime of the deciding seventh game. Newsday's front page the day following the win was a picture of Healy with a headline reading, "It's a Miracle!"
Turgeon returned for the semifinals against the Montreal Canadiens, though he was not in peak form as he had not fully recovered. The Islanders bowed out of the playoffs after a hard-fought five games, two of which went to overtime. After beating the Isles, the Canadiens went on to win the Cup.
Maloney had avoided making many personnel changes his first year, but a contract dispute with Healy led him to sign Ron Hextall, who had his best years with the rival Philadelphia Flyers.Fans grew more skeptical when, after a series of deals, Healy ended up as the backup on the Rangers. Although on paper Hextall appeared to be an upgrade, his play was inconsistent and he never endeared himself to Islanders fans.
The Islanders barely squeezed past the expansion Florida Panthers into the 1994 playoffs before being swept in a lopsided opening series by the first-place Rangers, who went on to win the Cup. Arbour retired for good as coach and was succeeded by longtime assistant Lorne Henning. Hextall, fairly or not, drew most of the criticism for the failed playoff campaign and was shipped back to Philadelphia for Tommy Soderstrom in the off-season.
In the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season, the Islanders not only failed to qualify for the playoffs, they finished ahead of only the third-year Ottawa Senators.

1995-2000: Management Issues
By the end of the 1994-95 season, it became clear that Maloney had mismanaged the team. Since taking over in 1992, the only noticeable attempt he made to upgrade the roster was letting Healy go in favor of Hextall. Near the end of the failed 1995 campaign, Maloney decided that the core of players he had left alone for three seasons should be totally revamped, and he undertook a rebuilding project. He traded Turgeon and Malakhov to Montreal for Kirk Muller and Mathieu Schneider, and Hogue was sent to Toronto for young goaltender Eric Fichaud. Additionally, Maloney allowed the team's leading scorer, Ferraro, to depart as a unrestricted free agent at the conclusion of the season. Fans' displeasure at the GM for trading the popular Turgeon was magnified when Muller balked at joining a rebuilding team. He only played 45 games for the Islanders before being sent to the Maple Leafs.
Before the 1995-96 season, Maloney fired Henning and named Mike Milbury head coach. The same year, the Isles' attempt at updating their look resulted in the unveiling of a logo depicting a fisherman holding a hockey stick. It proved to be such a disaster that the team announced less than a year after unveiling it that they would revert back to the original logo as soon as league rules allowed. Rangers fans still mock the Isles with chants of "we want fishsticks", a reference to the way the logo resembled the Gorton's fisherman. The year was a failure on the ice as well, as the Islanders finished in last place with a record of 22-50-10. During the season, team management fired Maloney, whom fans blamed for the team's downfall, and gave Milbury total control of hockey operations as both coach and general manager.
In the middle of the 1996-97 season, Milbury resigned as coach and elevated assistant Rick Bowness to the head coaching position. However, after another losing season and little improvement, Milbury took over as coach in the middle of the 1997-98 season. The team improved to fourth place in the Atlantic Division but still failed to make the playoffs. He stepped down as coach yet again in the middle of the 1998-99 season but retained his job as GM.
During their lean years, chaos within the Islanders' ownership and front office mirrored their substandard performance on the ice. Pickett sold the team to Dallas businessman John Spano in 1996. However, three months after the 1997 closing, Spano still hadn't paid Pickett the first installment on the cable deal. Evidence surfaced that Spano had deliberately misled the NHL and the Islanders about his net worth, and an investigation by Newsday revealed that Spano also had two lawsuits pending against him. When it became clear that Spano was a fraud and that he lacked the assets to purchase the team, ownership reverted to Pickett. Federal prosecutors turned up evidence that Spano had forged many of the documents used to vouch for his wealth and to promise payment to Pickett. He was sentenced to five years eleven months in prison for bank and wire fraud. The NHL was embarrassed when reports surfaced that it had only spent $750 to check Spano's background, and subsequently stiffened the process for vetting future owners.
Pickett finally found a buyer, a group led by Howard Milstein and Phoenix Coyotes co-owner Steven Gluckstern. Even that deal almost fell through when Spectacor Management Group, which managed the Coliseum for Nassau County, tried to force Pickett to certify that the Coliseum was safe. However, Pickett refused, since the Coliseum had fallen into disrepair in recent seasons. SMG backed down under pressure from the Islanders, the NHL and Nassau County officials.
Initially the team made numerous trades and increased their payroll in an effort to assemble a better team. In one representative transaction, well regarded young players Todd Bertuzzi and Bryan McCabe were traded for veteran Trevor Linden. However, as the Islanders continued to fall short of the playoffs, the new ownership group eventually decided to run the team on an austere budget in an attempt to make a profit. At the same time, Milstein bid hundreds of millions of dollars in unsuccessful attempts to purchase the National Football League's Washington Redskins and Cleveland Browns. Eventually, under Milstein and Gluckstern, the team traded or released many popular players who made more than $1M, including star scorer Zigmund Palffy, captain Trevor Linden, 1997 Calder Trophy-winning defenseman Bryan Berard and rugged defenseman Rich Pilon.

2000-2006: New ownership, a return to the playoffs
In 2000, Milstein and Gluckstern sold the team to Computer Associates executives Charles Wang and Sanjay Kumar.
With stable ownership finally in place, Milbury was allowed to spend money and invest in free agents. His first attempt proved unpopular with fans, as he traded away future stars Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen to the Florida Panthers for Oleg Kvasha and Mark Parrish. Additionally, Eric Brewer, a future All-Star defenseman was traded to the Edmonton Oilers for veteran defenseman Roman Hamrlik. Milbury then further surprised the hockey world when he took Rick DiPietro with the first selection in the entry draft, ahead of the consensus picks Dany Heatley and Marian Gaborik. Reporters and fans were alternately confused and enraged by the moves, which Milbury acknowledged, saying, "As dangerous as this may be, we think Mad Mike maybe has something going for him." The "Mad Mike" nickname has remained with Milbury ever since. Milbury said that his moves were intended to improve the team immediately, and in that respect they failed completely. The Islanders finished with the worst record in the NHL, and the team's uninspired play led Milbury to fire Isles legend Butch Goring as head coach before the end of the year. Many fans were upset that Goring and not Milbury took the fall for the lost season, and they were again upset when Milbury hired newcomer Peter Laviolette to coach the team, passing on Ted Nola.
The team also made three key personnel acquisitions prior to the 2001-02 season. They acquired Alexei Yashin from the Ottawa Senators in exchange for the Isles' the second overall in the entry draft, which the Senators used to select Jason Spezza, forward Bill Muckalt, and defenseman Zdeno Chara. The following day, Islanders prospects Tim Connoll and Taylor Pyatt were traded to the Buffalo Sabres for Michael Peca, who became the team's captain. By virtue of finishing last the year before, the Isles were also able to claim goaltender Chris Osgood with the first pick in the waiver draft, adding a former championship goaltender without giving up any players in exchange. Thanks in large part to strong play by Peca, Yashin and Osgood, the new-look Islanders opened the season on a tear, going 11-1-1-1 en route to finishing with 96 points--their best point total in 18 years, and just one point short of the Atlantic Division title. They fell to the Toronto Maple Leafs in a very physical first round series in which no road team won a game. Game 4 featured a Shawn Bates penalty shot goal with a 2:30 to play that gave the Islanders the lead and ultimately the game. In Game 5, Gary Roberts charged Islander defenseman Kenny Jonsson and Darcy Tucker submarined Peca, the Islanders' captain, with a questionable check. Neither Jonsson nor Peca returned in the series.
Despite the promise shown in the Toronto series, the Islanders had a slow start to the 2002-0 NHL season and lost a five game series in the first round to the top-seeded Senators. Milbury, known to make moves that often riled the fanbase, fired Laviolette after the season, citing end season interviews with the players in which they expressed a lack of confidence in the coach. He was replaced with Steve Stirling, who had previously been coaching the team's top minor league affiliate, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. In 2004, the Islanders again made the playoffs as the 8th seed and again lost in the first round to the eventual champion Tampa Bay Lightning. Despite the fact that the Lightning finished first in the conference and the Islanders qualified for the playoffs as the 8th and final seed, a few journalists had picked the Islanders to win based on their strong regular season performance against Tampa Bay.
Following the 2004-05 NHL lockout, which eliminated the 2004-05 season, the Islanders made several player moves to increase offense for 2005-06. Peca was traded to Edmonton for speedy center Mike York, freeing up room under the NHL's new salary cap. The same day, the team signed winger Miroslav Satan to play alongside Yashin. Milbury also remade the defensive corps, replacing departed free agents Adrian Aucoin and Roman Hamrlik and Jonsson, who left the NHL to play in his native Sweden, with Alexei Zhitnik, Brad Lukowich, and Brent Sopel. In the aftermath, Yashin was named the team's new captain. The team played inconsistent hockey, leading to Stirling's replacement on an interim basis by assistant Brad Shaw midway through the season. Although they played .500 hockey for the rest of the season, they missed the playoffs.

2006-present: A new look
On the day he replaced Stirling with Shaw, Milbury also announced that he would step down as general manager once a successor was found and become senior vice president of all of Wang's sports properties (Kumar had sold his interest to Wang in 2004).
The offseason was characterized by a degree of tumult. Team owner Charles Wang hired Ted Nolan as coach and Neil Smith as GM, but he fired Smith after a little over a month and replaced him with recently retired backup goaltender Garth Snow. The Islanders also made several free agent acquisitions, including defensemen Brendan Witt and Tom Poti and forwards Mike Sillinger and Chris Simon. The Islanders also signed goaltender Rick DiPietro to a 15-year, 67.5 million dollar contract, among the longest in professional sports history.
At the trade deadline, the team traded a first round draft pick and prospects Robert Nilsson and Ryan O'Marra to the Oilers for all-star Ryan Smyth.
In March, Chris Simon was suspended for the rest of the season and playoffs following a match penalty for intent to injure New York Rangers forward Ryan Hollweg.
The last four games in the 2006-07 season were crucial and most thought a playoff spot would be out of reach. However, the team won each game and edged out the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs for the final playoff spot in the process. The playoff-clinching game ended in a shootout win over the New Jersey Devils with minor league goalie Wade Dubielewicz poke-checking Sergei Brylin. The team expressed pride that they qualified because many NHL preview predictions had the Isles slated to finish at or near the bottom of the standings. They lost their first round matchup with the Buffalo Sabres, the NHL's best team during the regular season, in 5 games.
Milbury resigned his post in Wang's organization in May of 2007, saying he missed making day-to-day hockey decisions. The team announced that they would buy out Alexei Yashin's contract in June of 2007. Smyth, Viktor Kozlov, Jason Blake, Tom Poti, and Richard Zednik also left in July 2007 via free agency.
Days later, the Islanders signed Bill Guerin, who assumed the captaincy, to a two-year contract. Also in the offseason, free agents Mike Comrie, Ruslan Fedotenko, Andy Sutton, Jon Sim and Josef Vasicek joined the team.
On November 3, 2007 Al Arbour returned to coach his 1500th game for the Islanders at the behest of Ted Nolan, who wanted Arbour's regular season games coached total to reach 1500, a round number. The Islanders won the game, which extended Arbour's National Hockey League record for most games coached with one team and extended his NHL record 740 regular season wins with one team. Afterwards, in a post-game ceremony, the Islanders raised a new banner to honor Arbour's 1500th game coached for the Islanders.

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