Islanders News: Still picking 5th at the draft; MacDonald gets his payday

So the bad news is that you did not win the lottery last night. The good news is neither did any team ahead of the Islanders, and thus they keep the fifth overall pick. Florida, which won the lottery, picks first.

The other good news is that the NHL playoffs start tonight. Yay, hockey!

Islanders Reads

• The Islanders haven't said which year's pick they'll send to Buffalo. Don't expect any sort of announcement until it's due June 1. [Newsday]
• Tim Murray hopes Garth Snow's decision is hard. He also doesn't want any more pee-pee slaps from the league. [Die By The Blade]
• In the ISS rankings, Sam Reinhart has taken back the top spot. [TSN]
• Speaking of, in the WHL playoffs Kootenay has taken a 3-1 series lead on Medicine Hat. If they finish the series, then Sam Reinhart and Griffin Reinhart will meet in the playoffs for the third consecutive year.
• Brock Nelson and Matt Donovan are headed to Belarus. Which is like Sochi, except not. [LHH]
• Stockton set its playoff roster, with a few names of note. The Isles/Sound Tigers did a lot of shuffling over the past few months just for this experience. [Soundin' Off]
  
• Oh, ex-Isle Andrew MacDonald signed a big contract with the Flyers, and people laughed about it here, there and everywhere. Here is a dedicated LHH thread on the Isles pump-and-dump if you want to read or pile on more.
• Still more LHH: To every NHL team, a mentor. [LHH Zeitgeist] (True story: A nasty bug had me under when Linden was hired in Vancouver, so I woke up having dreamed -- and believed -- that the Isles named Bobby Nystrom President of Hockey Operations. Because why not.)

Elsewhere

• On that note, your 2014 NHL Playoff Bandwagon Guide [The Active Stick]
  
• Elliotte Friedman's 30 Thoughts, and playoff picks. [CBC]
• Brian Burke says what he thinks of John Tortorella. [Nichols on Hockey]
  
• Celebrating the 88-89 Wings and the wild, wild Norris. [Grantland]
• More playoff picks: Scott Cullen of TSN, who never just blows smoke.
• Speaking of which, we are again doing a playoff bracket and series by series polls. Just head to this stream to navigate through them all.