As Islanders settle into mediocrity, there’s plenty of blame to go around

National Hockey League general managers surely took notice of phenom Connor Bedard’s performance in the recent World Junior Championships. And after witnessing the Islanders’ 1-3-0 road trip in which they looked utterly unprepared, outmatched and outclassed for long stretches of each game — are we sure that they aren’t one of them? Since not allowing a power-play goal for the first eight games of the season, the Islanders’ kill rate is 75.3 percent since then, or 19th in the NHL over that span. Lamoriello’s solution to try and add depth to the Islanders’ roster in the offseason included signing Fasching — a good acquisition so far, although not exactly a franchise-altering one; signing Nikita Soshnikov, who’s already back in the KHL, and re-signing Kieffer Bellows, who was quickly waived and claimed by Philadelphia. But according to NHL Injury Viz, the Islanders aren’t even in the top half of teams that have been adversely affected by man games lost.