According to the New York Post’s Larry Brooks, the New York Islanders’ status as a mess on ice isn’t going to change anytime soon, and that’s too bad…For the paying fans of a team that, in the words of Bart Simpson, manages to “suck and blow at the same time”:

It Isn’t quite accurate to suggest the Islanders are on a treadmill to obscurity, for the fact of the matter is Charles Wang’s franchise long ago arrived at that destination.

And it isn’t quite correct to state the team is on the road to nowhere, because general manager Garth Snow’s club is headed somewhere no one in the NHL has gone before since the league expanded to 30 teams in 2000 — a fifth consecutive bottom-five finish.

Not one of the 122 North American big-league franchises has made itself as irrelevant as the Islanders. The three New York City-based daily newspapers do not see eye-to-eye on much, but not one believes the Islanders are important enough to merit coverage with more than a passing glance.

The operation has become an affront to the club’s long betrayed yet still loyal fans, who are expected to carry the ever-increasing freight for a floor team that cuts corners, glories in its outsider status and hasn’t made a single stride in closing the gap on the adults in the league despite consistently favorable draft position.

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