There are six days until the NHL trade deadline and the Islanders haven’t budged much in the standings — nor will they, it seems, before Monday. They’re currently out of the playoffs, having played one more game than Carolina. The Isles have two games before Monday’s deadline, so they won’t be safely in and they won’t be dead and buried.



What does that mean for general manager Garth Snow? It doesn’t appear his approach has changed from when he sat down with The Athletic two weeks ago and said he wasn’t trading any high draft picks for rental players.



Snow had his pro scouts fanned out around North America the past few weeks to watch players in person. That stuff always fuels deadline speculation, though the sight of head pro scout Ken Morrow in Vegas or vice president of hockey operations Claude Loiselle in Montreal may just be to make notes on potential summer trade or free-agent targets as well — all teams want...