Ask Islanders fans what their favorite moment as a fan of the team is, and you will get a wide variety of responses.
The history of the team is rich enough that there is a wealth of legitimate candidates from which to choose as one's top moment. In my experience, the determining factor in this choice is age.
First, you have the old timers who have followed the team since its inception. They are the ones with the toughest job simply because they have seen so much.
If these fans are fixated on the early days, as is their right, they might go for the symbolic choice of Ed Westfall's first goal in franchise history against the Atlanta Flames on October 7, 1972.
Perhaps others would prefer to mark the moment that the team arrived as a legitimate contender in the league. J.P. Parise's goal at :11 of overtime on April 11, 1975 that eliminated the Rangers and gave the Islanders their first playoff series win.
I imagine, however, that most would select Bobby Ny's goal at 7:11 of overtime in game seven of the 1980 Stanley Cup Finals
Nystrom's goal, in addition to setting the course for the defining era in the history of franchise, is the first of these moments that I consider to be cross-generational. Fans like myself who were too young to witness the early years are fortunate to count the greatest era of the Islanders as our introduction to the team.
Getting just a little younger, you might see a fan point to the Easter Epic and Pat LaFontaine's goal at 8:47 of the fourth overtime to defeat the Washington Capitals in the 1987 Patrick Division Semifinals.
And the newest generation of Islanders fans? They seem to gravitate toward Shawn Bates' penalty shot goal against the Toronto Maple Leafs in game four of the 2002 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals.
Well, that was a brief, but fun, trip down memory lane. Ah, but something is missing, you say? Yes, we have left out an era. Let's fill in that gap.
For a certain generation of Islanders fans, the greatest moment they witnessed in the history of the franchise was produced by David Volek.
On May 14, 1993, the Islanders faced the heavily favored, two-time defending Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins in game seven of the Patrick Division Final.
The Isles coughed up a late 3-1 lead and the game headed to overtime. At 5:16 of the extra session, Volek took a feed from Ray Ferraro on an odd-man rush and one-timed a slap shot past Tom Barrasso to put the Isles in the Conference Final.
For all intents and purposes, Volek's NHL career has been reduced to that one great moment. One almost never hears of him in any other context. I didn't even recall that Ferraro set up Volek on the Isles' second goal that night, too. So let's at least take the time to look back at a little bit more of the story.
Volek was a 10th round draft choice of the Islanders, 208th overall, in 1984. He couldn't have been anything more than a speculative pick at the time, as were nearly all Eastern Bloc draft choices.
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