Islanders Continue to Take Steps Back

Watching the changes that the New York Islanders make to their personnel each year is reminiscent of the old song: "take one step forward and two steps back."
Each year, New York adds interesting pieces to their puzzle (and believe me, this team is puzzling), but also loses key elements. If you take a look at the roster of players that the Islanders have let go over this past decade, you find the makings of what would be a pretty good hockey team.
This year, the Isles do not have Miro Satan. Although Satan's numbers declined over his three seasons in New York (66 in his first year, 2005-06, 59 in '06-'07, and 41 in '07-'08), he still finished last year as a 40-point player, which is more than many others on this roster can claim.
After the '07 campaign, Jason Blake departed. Blake was a fan favorite, a shorthanded specialist, and a huge spark plug for the team. They lost a lot of intensity and fire when he left.
The year before, Mark Parrish was wished farewell. Parrish was perhaps the best and most consistent scorer that the Islanders have had in the past decade. He was terrific in front of the net and on the power play, and New York lost a lot of goals when they lost Parrish.
Other players that were sent packing since the turn of the century include team captain, fan favorite, and All-Star Michael Peca. Peca is perhaps the best two-way player in the NHL, and is fantastic on the penalty kill. Enough said.
In addition, Alexei Zhitnik, Roman Hamrlik, Adrian Aucoin, Chris Osgood, Tim Connolly, and Zdeno Chara were all bid adieu.
If you take all of these players, and if the Islanders would have kept them, this is quite a formidable roster. But as they did with Zigmund Palffy, Todd Bertuzzi, and a host of other young talent, the Islanders let them go, mostly to save money.
In this day of free-agency and high-priced contracts, it has been proven (mostly by the Detroit Red Wings) that you need to spend money to put a decent product on the ice.
The Islanders, apparently, do not see it that way. Each year they add some exciting players, like a Doug Weight, but they offset that acquisition by letting other integral parts of the team go.
How good would New York be this season if they boasted a lineup of Weight, Peca, Parrish, and Blake at the forwards, to go with a defense corps of Hamrlik, Aucoin, Connolly, and Chara? Not to mention a goaltending tandem of Osgood and Rick DiPietro?
I know that you can't pay all of the players all of the time, and sometimes you have to give up some quality to get quality back in return, but if most of these players would have been kept on the Island, this team would be winning right now, and they would have been winning for the past several seasons.
It wouldn't be the same old one step forward and two steps back.