The calendar flipping near the middle of the last two seasons has been the catalyst for change with the New York Islanders. After a decent start to the 2022-23 season, they went 2-8-3 to open January and Lou Lamoriello swung the trade for Bo Horvat during the All-Star break.
Last season, the Isles hit 2024 at 17-10-9 — not great but somehow not as bad as it seems looking back — and promptly went 2-5-2 to start January, bringing Patrick Roy in for Lane Lambert.
The Islanders closed out 2024 on Tuesday afternoon with plenty of effort but no results. The 3-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs — with associate coach Lambert looking on from the Toronto bench — dropped the current season to 14-17-7, as bad a record as the Islanders have had entering the midseason new year as in the bad old days of the early 2010s.
Lamoriello may try to pull another rabbit out of his hat this January, but if the past two seasons are any indication, it’s time to start making plans to sell. That’s not a word in Lamoriello’s vocabulary but watching this team lose six of the last nine games and give up at least three goals in all of them, the Isles president and GM would be the last to know what’s coming.
It’s a reckoning. Whether it’s Lamoriello calling the shots or someone else who owner Scott Malkin deems Lamoriello’s successor, this Isles group has run its course. It’s a good group of good players at its core, many of whom played key roles in the delightful run from 2018-21, but it is so very over.
This year’s crew hasn’t blown a late lead in a while and they are as healthy as they’ve been in a while, but come on now. It’s not serious to think a team with an 11.3 percent power play and a 63.9 percent penalty kill — a PK that got better going 3-for-4 in Toronto on Tuesday — could turn this season around. A team with a goalie who’s played 12 of the last 13 games over the course of 28 days in December, the sort of overworking of Ilya Sorokin that turned him into a mess at the end of last season and only seemed to be a desperation move by Lambert.
The trade boards have been all the rage for a few weeks now and Brock Nelson is near the top of all of them. In past seasons there have been Islanders dotting those boards in December and January and February — you can and should still shake your head at what the Isles could have gotten for Scott Mayfield at the 2022-23 deadline — but it’s always been speculation, since Lamoriello never had any intention to give up on his guys.
That is probably true right now. Teams that are likely to have interest in buying at the March 7 deadline have heard Lamoriello isn’t interested in selling. Lamoriello has said often that his team dictates what he’ll do at the deadline; his team is sending a neon message to him now.
There’s Nelson, who went goalless in December but would still be one of the top two or three centers available to rent before the deadline. There’s Kyle Palmieri, who might not fetch as big a price as Nelson but could still interest teams. There’s J-G Pageau, still with a year left on his deal but playing far better than he did last season and showing teams what he can still do offensively, defensively and in the faceoff circle. Maybe there’s even interest in Anders Lee, also with a year left on his deal but leading the Isles with 16 goals.
Semyon Varlamov has been day to day for about 30 days now and he’s still got two years left on his deal, so the 36-year-old backup goalie isn’t exactly in high demand. But teams like the Leafs, who have their starter out for another month and their backup, Joseph Woll, wobbling through Tuesday’s game, might have some interest in Varlamov, who still (somehow) has a full no-trade clause until July but also has a contract that can be easily bought out.
Lamoriello should be laying the trade groundwork on all three of the above forwards at a minimum. It would be a shame to see Nelson go elsewhere. He’s been a loyal Islander since day one, steadily improving after a couple of stagnant early NHL seasons to become the Isles’ most reliable player during the Barry Trotz era. He earned his spot on the U.S. team at the 4 Nations Facee-Off Nations tournament in February. He sits 22 games from 900 and 15 goals from 300, both milestones that only four other players in franchise history have hit.
But the way things are going there are no guarantees Nelson will want to stay when free agency comes calling this summer. There’d be a lot of demand for his services, even at age 34 (by then); the Wild, in his home state, will have loads of cap space and a desperate need for centers. If you’re old enough to remember the pivotal 2016 offseason, when the Isles set themselves back by not offering Frans Nielsen a new deal, you know that once free agency gets close, guys get tempted to see what’s out there. And there can be a lot out there, even if Nielsen’s decision didn’t work out for him either.
It would be nearly impossible to find takers for any of the Isles’ over-30 defensemen in-season but there have to be conversations on that front in the offseason. Adam Pelech would be the most likely to find a taker but it will require some creativity and a strong desire to remake the roster, which the Isles very much have to do. They have had three coaches in the last three-plus seasons and the only direction things have gone is down, with a few highs sprinkled in.
That tells you the time has come. If Lamoriello can’t see it or won’t see it, Malkin must find someone who will. This isn’t a teardown, there’s no need to tank and try to win the draft lottery — the way this season is headed they’ll have more than a few ping-pong balls without any changes being made. But change they must.
And who knows what to make of Roy, who got plenty of attention for keeping Sorokin on the bench for a defensive-zone draw down a goal with 42.3 seconds left on Tuesday. Roy has an interesting head for the game and a unique way of communicating. He also must be bristling at the stale roster, not just with the older guys but with players like Kyle MacLean, whose fun rookie season has turned unbelievably sour in his second year. The line juggling was born out of necessity with injuries but now Roy seems unfocused with his five-on-five choices and that’s the only place the Islanders have been decent this year.
A coach with the 32nd-ranked PP and PK shouldn’t feel too secure, either.
So everything should be on the table. It’s been a fun ride with this group, with Lamoriello defying the league’s perception of the Islanders for a few enjoyable years. But those are gone now.
It’s over. Time for the Islanders to act like it heading into a crucial trade deadline and offseason.
(Photo: Nick Turchiaro / Imagn Images)
