Are Isles Better or Worse?

The Islanders had their team picked apart during free agency. Ryan Smyth, Jason Blake, Viktor Kozlov, and Richard Zednik all left shortly after the team parted ways with Alexei Yashin for salary cap reasons. Between those 5 players the team lost a total of 126 goals. Despite what seems like a significant hit GM Garth Snow seems optimistic. 'If you look at our team now compared to what we had, the potential to get goals from our forwards is far greater than what it was last September,' He told Newsday. 'Quite honestly I think we're better.' The new players scored a total of 41 fewer goals than the players they are replacing.