The Islanders’ season is over after a five-game loss to the Hurricanes in the first round, so it’s time to reflect and to start looking ahead.
The best way of doing that, naturally, is with a mega-newsletter with takeaways on every player on the roster, thoughts on the playoff series and the season writ large.
Since this got long, we’re going to keep the intro short and get right into it with the forward group.
Forwards
Mat Barzal: Statistically, this was Barzal’s best season since his Calder Trophy-winning rookie year. In reality, it was probably his best season, period. Barzal hit the 80-point mark, was engaged defensively more often than in the past and successfully executed a move to the wing. He meshed well with Patrick Roy, and Roy trusted him in more late-game situations — which probably had something to do with the Islanders starting to figure out how to hang onto leads late in the season.
Bo Horvat: The first full year on The Island was better than last season’s 30-game cameo for Horvat. His 33 goals and 35 assists were on the high end of what the Islanders could have expected from Horvat, who contributed on both special teams and quickly found chemistry with Barzal. The Islanders have a lasting top-line duo here, and that’s a win.
Anders Lee: The captain was one of the Islanders’ best performers down the stretch and in the playoffs, but it took him a little too late into the season to get going. On nights where Lee had it, he was still an impact player who could inspire teammates. On nights where he didn’t, especially early in the season, it looked ugly. A more complete 82 games is needed here.
Brock Nelson: Probably the most interesting player on the roster going into the offseason. Nelson again crossed the 30-goal threshold this season, but rarely looked fully engaged for the last month or so and, outside of a pair of goals, didn’t make a playoff impact. Next season is the last of his current contract — do the Islanders try to extend his contract, trade Nelson this offseason when his value is still high or wait for next year’s trade deadline to decide?
Jean-Gabriel Pageau: Another player who took a little too long to get going this season. Pageau is nobody’s idea of a high-end scorer, but the Islanders need more than 11 goals and 33 points from their third-line center. His 46.54 expected goals percentage betrays a tough defensive season, too, though in fairness, Pageau’s heavy defensive-zone deployment didn’t make things easy.
Kyle Palmieri: Playing all 82 regular-season games rightly meant a lot to Palmieri and unsurprisingly resulted in his best season since the last time he played every game. Putting him at the netfront on the top power-play unit was a solid move early in the season from Lane Lambert, but that unit fizzled out around the All-Star break and never quite recovered. Like Nelson, Palmieri is up for an extension this offseason. Both players will be 33 next season, so there’s some question around how the Islanders will handle it.
Pierre Engvall: If Roy can get Engvall fully engaged for all 82 games, the Islanders will have a versatile middle-six player who can make an impact for just $3 million annually. If Engvall drifts through next season the way he did most of this season, then six more years at $3 million a pop is going to be a very long time. Engvall was his best self in the playoffs, but he needs to be harder on pucks, much more physical and much more receptive to coaching. Getting healthy-scratched 12 games into a seven-year deal was a terrible look and getting healthy-scratched by Roy after Lambert did so twice was just as bad.
Casey Cizikas: The entry of Kyle MacLean into the lineup allowed the Islanders to move Cizikas around to center the third line, play Jean-Gabriel Pageau’s wing and finally, play alongside Horvat and Barzal. He was fairly useful in all of those roles — a good sign because it doesn’t look as if the Islanders can keep MacLean out of the lineup next season. The 33-year-old Cizikas hasn’t really slowed down. He’s still the same hard-driving, pesky player, and the Islanders are better for it.
Matt Martin: It looks possible Martin has played his last game in blue-and-orange after he ended a tough season by missing the last two playoff games due to injury. Martin was in and out of the lineup all season due to injury issues and the occasional healthy scratch, and had a tough go of it when he did play. With his contract expiring and the Islanders needing to change out some pieces, it’s difficult to see him back next season.
Cal Clutterbuck: Along with Nelson, what the Islanders do with Clutterbuck is an important litmus test for how the organization sees things. Clutterbuck played all 82 games for the first time this season and proved himself capable of contributing even at age 36. He also sounds like he wants another year. Will the Islanders bring him back on a one-year deal or let him ply his trade elsewhere in what would be a hugely symbolic departure for the organization?
Kyle MacLean: It’s probably not the best reflection on the Islanders’ veterans that MacLean was their best skater by some margin in the playoffs. But it does change the outlook for the rookie whose effort level on every shift was off the charts against Carolina. MacLean has fairly easily earned a job as the fourth-line center next season — the question is whether the Islanders want to try him further up the lineup. He did well centering the third line when Pageau missed Game 1 against Carolina and played a few shifts on Horvat’s wing during the series.
Hudson Fasching: The best games of Fasching’s breakout 2022-23 season came when he was filling in on the fourth line. Those chances were few and far between this season, so the Islanders instead had to play Fasching on the second or third lines — roles to which he rarely looked suited. The result was a season in which Fasching’s impact was muted, which puts a bit of a question over his future.
Oliver Wahlstrom: The Islanders were hoping Wahlstrom could return from a serious knee injury and get back on the development track he was on in 2022, or even better, the one he was on in late 2021. That never happened. Not even close. Wahlstrom didn’t appear fully recovered at the start of camp, his confidence looked shot and despite myriad chances under two different coaches, he never made an impact or stayed in the lineup. After Roy benched him in late February, Wahlstrom did not even appear to factor into his thinking. It would be absolutely stunning to see the Islanders bring him back as a restricted free agent. A fresh start appears to be the best thing for everyone.
Simon Holmstrom: Two years into his career, it’s still not entirely clear what sort of player Holmstrom is. Early in the season, he was racking up shorthanded goals, but by the end, he was off the penalty kill entirely. There’s still some inconsistency to Holmstrom’s game, which is tough when the Islanders are hoping to develop him into a consistent third-line player, not a top-line superstar. He’s probably done enough to earn a year or two on a bridge deal.
Ruslan Iskhakov: Getting Iskhakov a couple cameos in the NHL was important for both the player and organization, though doing so in Game 4 of the playoffs probably wasn’t ideal. It looks like a long shot that Iskhakov will stick in the league due to his size — he can’t do anything about his height, but he absolutely needs to spend the summer adding more muscle after getting knocked off the puck too easily throughout his pair of games with the Islanders. Rumors have circulated all year about Iskhakov going back to Russia, and if he does take that route, it’s a tell the Islanders don’t see a future for him.
Julien Gauthier: The coaching change killed any fledgling momentum in Gauthier’s season. When Lambert was fired, the Quebecois was getting into the lineup most nights on the third line. After three games with Roy, he was dropped to AHL Bridgeport and never heard from again. There’s still another year on his deal, and it makes sense to keep Gauthier around as organizational depth. But that’s about it.
Defense
Ryan Pulock: The Islanders probably would have liked more offense from Pulock, but he’s become one of their steadier defensive defensemen. It says something that the worst stretch of the season came when Pulock was out in January. This was a quiet, dependable season from the 29-year-old.
Adam Pelech: After missing time early in the season because of injury, Pelech never looked quite like himself. The numbers for him and Pulock as a pair dropped off massively from their peak a few seasons ago, and even defensively, Pelech was the less dependable of the two. A summer to reset feels like a good thing.
Noah Dobson: The overarching takeaway: Dobson’s season was the best for an Islanders defenseman since Denis Potvin, and he deserves every cent he’ll get this offseason — and possibly a letter to go with it. The massive playing time Dobson saw early in the season due to injuries elsewhere, however, probably had a negative effect later on, when Dobson’s production trailed off and he had a pedestrian playoff series.
Alexander Romanov: Like Dobson, a very strong big-picture season, but with some nitpicks. Romanov got top-pair minutes for a lot of this season and should get a nice extension as a reward over the summer. He played a more sound defensive game, cutting out a lot of the big hits for more quiet, better plays. But there was a bit of overall inconsistency and very little offense, leaving room to grow.
Mike Reilly: It’s not an exaggeration to say the Panthers putting Reilly on waivers right when Pelech and Sebastian Aho both got hurt in a post-Thanksgiving match in Ottawa might have been the luckiest thing to happen all season for the Islanders. Reilly plugged a huge hole in the defense initially and added some needed offense all season from the blue line, finishing with 24 points and playing top-unit power-play minutes in the playoffs. There’s a strong argument for bringing him back for another season.
Scott Mayfield: In retrospect, Mayfield’s season was ruined on opening night when he blocked a shot off his ankle at five-on-six and exited the game. The ankle never got right, and Mayfield suffered other injuries as well. The Islanders finally called time in March when the defenseman underwent surgery. Everyone will be hoping for better luck in Year 2 of a seven-year deal he signed last summer.
Robert Bortuzzo: It was a little surprising Roy never tried Aho in Bortuzzo’s spot during the playoffs given that Bortuzzo looked a step behind all series and his on-ice numbers were terrible. But that did pay off when Bortuzzo’s blue-line shot helped extend the season a couple days in double overtime of Game 4. The veteran was brought in to help fill a gap on the blue line with the Islanders suffering a mess of injuries, and he did fine until getting hurt himself. Still, it’s difficult to see the 34-year-old back for another season.
Sebastian Aho: On a related note, it’s hard not to wonder whether Aho thinks his time is up on Long Island after sitting for the entire playoffs. The Swede is an unrestricted free agent this summer after a pedestrian season in which his lineup spot looked more stable under the old coach than the new coach. If the Islanders re-sign Reilly, there’s also not an obvious path for everyday playing time for Aho.
Samuel Bolduc: The Islanders were encouraged by Bolduc’s debut last season, but this season marked a step back. Bolduc never quite looked confident in 34 NHL games and quickly found himself on the outs once Roy took over, playing just once after Jan. 27 and going back to the AHL just to get in a few games. If the Islanders no longer see him as a piece of the future, it would be better to try and capitalize on whatever value Bolduc has now than to wait until it’s too late, as they did with Wahlstrom.
Goaltenders
Ilya Sorokin: Roy was almost certainly correct when he said Sorokin hasn’t forgotten how to play goal — it’s not time to hit the panic button after a rough season and a bad ending. But it is pretty clear Sorokin needs the summer to reset his game and his mind, and there is at least a little bit of question over his long-term status as the franchise goalie. If he can’t recover his game next season, it will be a big problem.
Semyon Varlamov: The best trade Lou Lamoriello never made was keeping Varlamov in New York. Varlamov’s play down the stretch was the biggest reason the Islanders made the playoffs, and he was excellent throughout the series against Carolina. Next season should be much closer to an even split for starts between the two netminders than the 55-27 in Sorokin’s favor this season.
Takeaways from the playoffs
1️⃣ The optimistic view is the Islanders pushed Carolina in every game and if a few bounces go the other way, the whole thing could have turned around. There’s some kernels of truth there, but I am closer to the pessimistic view: The Hurricanes never played especially well and the Islanders played a pretty strong five games, but Carolina still won the series in five.
2️⃣ In terms of five-on-five goals, the Islanders were only minus-1 across the series. And outside of Game 2, when Carolina dominated the run of play, the worst the Islanders ever did at even strength was essentially playing the Hurricanes to a draw.
3️⃣ This series was lost on special teams and — in Game 3, in particular — in the net. Carolina finished 5-of-15 on the power play; the Islanders were 3-for-11. It wasn’t a totally dominant performance, but it was enough, especially in Games 1 and 5 when the Islanders took bad penalties early and paid for it. And in Game 3, Roy’s decision to start Ilya Sorokin backfired and probably lost the Islanders the game.
4️⃣ Roy did an excellent job with the Islanders after taking over, but the big decisions he made in this series went the wrong way, or at least ended up in neutral. Starting Sorokin was defensible — I agreed with it, so I’m not going to kill it — but it didn’t work. Iskhakov coming into the lineup didn’t make an impact. Sticking with the same lineup made sense given the five-on-five numbers, but it would have been interesting to see MacLean get more minutes or Aho get into the lineup. That said, it’s difficult to imagine that would have made a significant impact.
5️⃣ If this is the Carolina team that shows up against the Rangers, they will lose in five games. Five-on-five is allegedly their strength against the Rangers, but Hurricanes were vulnerable there all series. Jake Guentzel was barely noticeable, Brett Pesce’s injury (and potentially Tony DeAngelo’s) hurts their back end and the Islanders never got enough traffic around Frederik Andersen to really test him. I expect them to play better in round two, but why the Hurricanes are favored is a mystery to me.
Takeaways from the season
1️⃣ Two big what-ifs: What if the defense had not been hampered by injuries for the entire first half? And what if Lamoriello had pulled the trigger on a coaching change after the Western Canada trip in mid-November instead of waiting another two months?
2️⃣ I’m curious exactly how much — if any — detail on this comes out of breakup day, but players have alluded to how tough a season this was for a lot of them. Some of the reasons are obvious: There was a coaching change and the Islanders suffered a lot of brutal losses late in games. But I wonder especially how much the veterans were challenged by Roy behind closed doors, given the head coach talked in mid-February about changing the culture.
3️⃣ Despite the injuries on defense, the Islanders were fairly healthy this season. They lost just 48 games due to injury in the forward group and rated firmly in the middle of the pack in overall cap hit loss due to injury, per NHL Injury Viz. So the notion that they were particularly unlucky in that regard doesn’t really fly.
4️⃣ I’m skeptical that the big issue with this team was top-end scoring. The Islanders had three 30-goal scorers, an 80-point season from Barzal and a 70-point season from Dobson. Adding a superstar to round out the top line would be great. But if it’s that or adding depth and a left-sided defenseman, put me in the latter camp.
5️⃣ There’s been ample speculation Roy wants Benoit Desrosiers to be the Islanders’ head coach one day. I can’t speak to that, other than to say it would be a shock to see it happen anytime soon, but it’s been pointed out to me by a few people that Desrosiers doesn’t have any head coaching experience aside from a few months with the QMJHL Gatineau Olympiques. Pure speculation here, but I wonder whether a stint coaching AHL Bridgeport — which had a rough season at 25-38-9 — makes sense for Desrosiers.
