Team: New York Islanders
Team Building Status: Declining
Lou Lamoriello became the New York Islanders President of Hockey Operations and GM in the summer of 2018. They put up 103 points the following season and made a trip to the Eastern Conference Final in the lockout shortened 2019-2020 season. Ever since then, it’s been a slow but steady decline and they’re at risk of missing the playoffs for the second time in three seasons. What can they do to turn it around?
Roster Ruminations
NHL Roster
The Islanders roster hasn’t seen much turnover over the past few seasons. Lou has been loyal to his veterans and the collective age of the roster is starting to show. The Isles’ profile for next season doesn’t look very strong, despite the fact that they have only a few low profile UFAs that have been stripped from the roster. They look poised for another step back next season, with some underwhelming possession stats expected from the model.
Salary Cap Management
The Islanders cap sheet doesn’t leave much flexibility to change course. Most of the current roster is already under contract for next season and they have less than 10% of their cap space remaining to improve the roster for the 2024-2025 season. To make matters worse, they’ve made a large long term commitment to the group they have now. Seven players are under contract through the 2028-2029 season or longer.
Future Assets
The Islanders stockpile of future assets doesn’t bode well for their long term outlook either. It’s actually more of a modest collection than a stockpile. Hockey Prospecting ranks the Islanders 31st in the NHL for their prospect pool, ahead of only the Bruins. They’ve also traded away a few picks from the next three drafts, resulting in a draft pick profile that is slightly below baseline as well.
What’s Next?
Looking at the Islanders roster in cohorts of 4 year age groups give us a more detailed picture of how the collective age of the roster is starting to take it’s toll on team performance.
| Centers | Wingers | Defensemen | Goalies |
| Brock Nelson | Anders Lee | Scott Mayfield | Semyon Varlamov |
| Jean-Gabriel Pageau | Kyle Palmieri | Mike Reilly | |
| Cal Clutterbuck | Casey Cizikas | Robert Bortuzzo |
| Centers | Wingers | Defensemen | Goalies |
| Mat Barzal | Pierre Engvall | Ryan Pulock | Ilya Sorokin |
| Bo Horvat | Hudson Fasching | Adam Pelech | |
| Sebastian Aho |
| Centers | Wingers | Defensemen | Goalies |
| Oliver Wahlstrom | Alex Romanov | ||
| Simon Holmstrom | Samuel Bolduc | ||
| Kyle MacLean |
The late prime cohort includes the Islanders biggest stars. Mat Barzal, Bo Horvat, Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock and Ilya Sorokin are in this group and are the leaders from a performance perspective. This group should be the backbone of the roster at this stage and are already well into their prime years. The good news is this group includes most of their long term commitments. The bad news is they may only have a season or two more before they start to run into age related decline as a group.
The support pieces surrounding the Barzal cohort are almost entirely older. The veteran cohort includes a lot of the Islanders depth. With the young end of this cohort now 30, age curves are taking their toll on the group as a whole. Without a suitably large younger cohort in place to counteract the aging effects from this group, the roster as a whole is being gradually dragged down.
The early prime cohort has a few good pieces, but it’s simply not deep enough to balance out the decline in the veteran cohort. Alex Romanov has taken a big role this season, but much of this group has struggled to gain a foothold within the NHL roster.
The Islanders have backed themselves into a corner that will take some serious maneuvering to escape from. They need to reduce the size of their veteran cohort significantly and build a younger cohort to center the future of their roster around. It might be too late to consider a regenerative approach given their weak prospect pool, so a focus on adding picks in the next few drafts might be their best option.
