One City, Two Stories

I know it sounds incredibly cliché, but it almost really was a tale of two cities as free agency began.

On one hand, it was a city reloading for another run toward the Cup. On the other, it was a city firing blanks as it looked to be spiraling downward.

One city added two highly-touted free agents to appear even stronger than before. The other city lost two highly-coveted free agents in two moves – or should I say non-moves – that make it seem like the team doesn’t plan to compete.

Funny thing is, it’s the same city.

The team on the up is the New York Rangers. The team on the way down is the New York Islanders.

Madison Square Garden will welcome Scott Gomez and Chris Drury this coming season after both signed long-term deals to play above Penn Station, giving the Rangers a lot of firepower for the new season. They will likely lose either Michael Nylander or Brendan Shanahan, and they very well could lose both. Faced with that, the Rangers did more than enough to replace them. And if they do bring back Shanahan – the re-signing of Nylander looks increasingly more unlikely each day – the team will really have offensive firepower to hang with the best of the league.

The Coliseum, however, will do more than say goodbye to Jason Blake and Ryan Smyth, as well as Tom Poti and Viktor Kozlov. They might be saying goodbye to any chance of postseason play as well.

The Isles traded three prospects for Smyth to gear up for a playoff run late last year, but with every intent of re-signing the star. That, however, was clearly not the case. Smyth bolted for Colorado, while Blake will be with the Maple Leafs. Poti and Kozlov are now teammates in Washington.

The Rangers’ signings speak volumes about the Garden’s commitment to bring a championship back to Broadway.

But the Isles’ decisions are highly questionable.

I’m not sure why owner Charles Wang would allow his team to basically give up before the season started. Smyth cost him a lot of young talent, and so everyone believed that he would do whatever it takes to re-sign him. That, however, wasn’t the case. Then Blake, who was a bit of a revelation last season, walks free.

It makes absolutely no sense.

The Islanders snuck into the playoffs last season without the services of their top-class goalie down the stretch, and re-signing Smyth would give the Isles a lot of firepower to mount a similar run. It would also signal that the team is committed to getting to the playoffs.

But Wang’s non-moves signal that he doesn’t care about his team, current or future, and that is most surprising. In the win-at-all-costs pressure that any New York sports team faces, the Islanders are going in a direction that seems to embody the avoid-winning-at-all-costs theory.

And that will never fly in New York.

Now, will the Isles’ fan base tolerate this, or will they call for Charles Wang to sell the team. This will be a very interesting story to watch.