2019 FNHL Cup Champions
New York Islanders
Led By GM: Jay Reardon
Row 1: David Tremblay, Vesa Toskala
Row 2: Maxim Lapierre, Fabian Brunnstrom, Nikolai Zherdev, Denis Ezhov, Dmitri Kosmachev
Row 3: Quinton Howden, Sven Baertschi, Chuck Kobasew, Lukas Bolf, Doug Janik
Row 4: Geoff Paukovich, Nikolai Kumelin, David Clarkson, Nathan Beaulieu, Kris Russell
Row 5: Tomas Hertl, Andrej Nestarsil, Nick Ross
Not Pictured: NONE
The Greatest Franchise In FNHL History
Yes, I am officially making that statement that the New York Islanders are now the greatest franchise in FNHL history. We can look back at the years of the Colorado Avalanche, Edmonton Oilers, or even the Nashville Predators but the Islanders just became the first team to win the FNHL Cup three times. It's not just winning the cup that has made the Islanders so great, its the amount of regular season wins and playoff wins as well. Since the 2011 season, the Islanders have gone to the FNHL Cup Finals 5 times. So basically over a span of 9 season more than half of them ended with the Islanders playing for the cup. Why is it important to make this such a big deal? Regardless what the Islanders want to think, David Tremblay is getting on his last leg getting towards his 34 year old season and he MIGHT have another 3 or 4 years of productive play left if he is lucky. Much like every single offseason now for the Islanders, they could be in serious cap trouble. Maxim Lapierre, Nikolai Zherdev, and Quinton Howden are all up for new contracts and its going to cost a pretty penny to keep Howden around. Chances are either Lapierre or Zherdev will be taking a walk unless Reardon can convince them both to take a little less money to stick around.
A huge congrats goes out to all of the GMs this season and not just Jay Reardon. It was a rejuvinated season for the league and it saw some extreme competition. After the first few rounds of the playoffs and we saw teams like Colorado and St. Louis in the conference championship, it showed how difficult it is to get far in this league. The amount of parity is pretty amazing since we are praising a franchise on winning their 3rd FNHL Cup in 17 seasons. Jay Reardon has time and time again showed how great of a GM he is as every season he loses players to the cap but still puts an amazing team on the ice. How much longer will the Islanders be great? Honestly, it might be until Jay retires from the league (which better not ever happen).
Congrats to Jay Reardon and the New York Islanders on the winning the 17th FNHL Cup!