Montreal Canadiens: Five Teams That Prove NHL Teams Can Go From Last to Playoffs

2001-02 New York Islanders

The 2000-01 New York Islanders were not a very scary offensive team. Dave Scatchard finished second on that team in goals and third in points. Mariusz Czerkawski led the team in scoring with 30 goals and 62 points.

Future Canadiens defender Roman Hamrlik was the second highest scorer on the team with 46 points. It wasn’t a good offensive team and between a really old John Vanbiesbrouck and a really young Rick Dipietro, they couldn’t find a reliable starting goaltender either.

They did some enormous roster reconstruction in the offseason. The Islanders, shortsightedly I might add, traded the second overall pick, which everyone knew would be Jason Spezza, as well as towering young defenceman Zdeno Chara and gritty winger Bill Muckalt for Alexei Yashin.

They also sent two recent top ten picks in Tim Connolly and Taylor Pyatt to the Buffalo Sabres for Michael Peca. The Islanders also dealt their second round pick for veteran defender Adrian Aucoin. The deals gave the Islanders much better depth down the middle for the 2001-02 season, but it was clearly a pair of trades with no regard for the future of the franchise.

I guess it kinda worked since they made the playoffs in 2002, where they lost a hard fought series in seven games to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs won a Game 7? It truly was a different time.

This would be like the Habs trading the first overall pick and Kaiden Guhle for Evgeni Kuznetsov and also trading Ryan Poehling and Jesse Ylonen for J.G. Pageau. Probably not the best idea.