The Islanders haven't even played a pre-season game yet, and they already have injury problems.
Mark Streit: Shoulder surgery, out for 6 months.
Kyle Okposo: Shoulder surgery, out for 2 months.
That's 100-120 man games lost to injury, and the season is still two weeks away. Feel free to insert your own joke about how Rick DiPietro's inevitable injury will cause those numbers to skyrocket.
If you're the Islanders, you might think about ratcheting expectations down a little bit. But you can you do that when your ticket prices are at an all-time high? Like it or not, injuries to your two best players don't make it okay to miss the playoffs again. Instead, the Islanders will need players - both the big names and the unknown ones - to step up.
These injuries to Streit and Okposo are devastating, but they also provide a tremendous opportunity to guys like Calvin de Haan, Nino Niederreiter, Travis Hamonic and countless others, including the newly-acquired Mike Mottau. These players now have the chance to step up and make a significant impact on the big club. It's also an opportunity for players like John Tavares and Josh Bailey to take a more active role in the leadership of this club.
Feel free to wallow a bit - after all, a 2010 without Mark Streit and Kyle Okposo is hardly what you expected. But life goes on, and so do the Islanders' playoff chances - and the expectations that they'll be significantly better than the draft lottery. The lost production and leadership of Streit and Okposo has to come from somewhere, and it'll be very interesting and exciting to see who steps up.
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