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Posted on September 27 before the first game of the season.  

The New York Islanders will attempt to rebuild their roster in the post-John Tavares era and it’s going to take some time. However, with Lou Lamoriello taking over as the GM and Barry Trotz taking over behind the bench, the Islanders are getting way too much credit in this number. Way too much. What 82½-points means is that the Islanders have to play over .500 and frankly, we don’t see how that is possible.

Lamoriello will eventually get this franchise going in the right direction but is it any different than what he inherited with the Maple Leafs in his first year in Toronto? Not really, as Toronto was morbid and labored its way to a first-round draft pick that turned out to be Auston Matthews. For now, the Islanders have plugged their roster full of assorted fourth-liners and depth players on long-term contracts, having them join the other fourth-liners and depth players that are returning … also on long-term contracts.

That creates a roster that is just not particularly good or deep by NHL standards. Fine people that play hard, go about their business as professionals, and can each probably carve out a niche for themselves in the NHL. It is exactly what an NHL roster shouldn’t be, which is a collection of players that make up a significant portion of your roster. Second, all of those long-term contracts and additions mean those veteran players are all but guaranteed roster spots, making it even more difficult for younger, potentially more impactful players to make the roster. Younger, potentially more impactful players that might be able to make your team better.

Lou Lamoriello is buying time and we saw that play out recently with the latest round of roster cuts from the Islanders, as they continue to trim their roster toward the 23-player opening night group. Among the cuts were 2016 first-round draft pick Kieffer Bellows, 2018 first-round pick Noah Dobson, and the talented Josh Ho-Sang, who seems to have been unable to gain the trust or win the approval of a new coaching staff and front office. Along with them, there were also other young players, Sebastien Aho and Michael Dal Colle, assigned to the American Hockey League.

Lamoriello was asked if he wanted to have a more veteran roster to open the season, something the team will now no doubt have. He downplayed that, before coming out and saying that none of the players being sent down deserved to be in the NHL over the veterans that are on the roster right now.

“I don’t think it’s a case of wanting to see a veteran team, we have a lot of players under contract,” said Lamoriello. “We have to find out who they are and if they can play before any major decisions are made. So you have to give an opportunity. I think to ourselves and our coaching staff we are still learning about them. They have contracts, that’s why sometimes the business gets into it. But these players who are going down, they don’t deserve to be here right now. They haven’t played that well that they should not be taking a job away from the veterans at this point.”

We want to emphasize how important that last quote is. Lamoriello comes over from Toronto, a franchise he turned around completely in three short years with the same approach. He’s going after franchise player Jack Hughes (Hughes is seen as a top prospect for the 2019 NHL Entry Draft and widely projected to go first overall) and he’s preparing for it right now.

Taking a quote from that last one above, Lou said, “I don’t think it’s a case of wanting to see a veteran team, we have a lot of players under contract. We have to find out who they are and if they can play before any major decisions are made”.

Find out what you have with a bunch of these veterans? At this point in their careers everyone in the NHL knows exactly what every single one of those players is, and what they are capable of. Lamoriello is bullshitting his way through a bad year and knows how to answer questions.

Leo Komarov is 31 years old with 327 games in the NHL.

Matt Martin is 29 years old with 590 games.

Tom Kuhnhackl is 26 years old with 168 games.

Valtteri Filppula is 34 years old with 876 games.

Luca Sbisa, just signed on Monday, the same day that Dobson and Aho were sent to the AHL/Juniors. Sbisa is 28 years old with 495 games. These are just the players the Islanders brought in this offseason from outside the organization, almost all of whom seem to be overkill in their roles when you consider the team already had Cal Clutterbuck, Casey Cizikas and Ross Johnston (who got a four-year contract over the summer) on the roster. There are no secrets with any of these players. At this point in their career you are getting exactly what you have seen from them over the past several years.

In goal, the Islanders will go with Robin Lehner and Thomas Greiss. The Isles ranked 31st in the NHL last year in goals against and dead last in PP goals against too. Analytically, they ranked near the bottom in many key defensive categories. Goaltending determines the outcome of games more than any other factor and the Islanders are in bad shape in that regard. Lehner is not only a below average goaltender, he’s a hot-head too while Thomas Greiss is just plain bad. Of the 56 qualified goaltenders last year (20 minimum games played), Greiss ranked 55th in GSAA (Goals Saved Above Average) while Lehner ranked 40th. These two stiffs are not going to steal many games but will cost the team many.

Let’s recap: The Islanders just lost their best player from a team that missed the playoffs by 17 points. It is a team that is going to be bad and miss the playoffs again with perhaps the worst record in hockey. The new GM made an indirect statement that this is a write-off year, as all the young talent was sent back to the minors in favor of a bunch of grinders that will try to scratch and claw their way to a 2-1 or 3-2 win. They have weak goaltending, very weak defense and they will once again play all their home games in a morgue-like atmosphere in front of less crowds than they’ve ever seen before. The Islanders projected total is a bad number put up by oddsmakers that we have to try and take advantage of. This is a 30-win team if everything goes well and even that might be a stretch.

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