The New York Islanders weren't expected to rank among the NHL's elite center groups. That was the conclusion reached by The Athletic's Harman Dayal, who placed the Islanders in Tier 6, a designation reserved for below-average top-six center duos. If Barzal is indeed the Islanders' second-line center, as DeBoer has suggested, then the foundation of the ranking changes considerably. But calling Horvat and Barzal a below-average center duo feels equally difficult to justify. That combination, if they remain healthy, looks much closer to an above-average NHL center group than one sitting near the bottom of the league rankings, with a chance to be better than that.