The trade deadline has come and gone, with some teams making splash trades while others made a few minor additions. Lou Lamoriello did something he never did in his tenure as general manager (GM) of the New York Islanders. He sold… sorta. He traded Brock Nelson to the Colorado Avalanche in a big move that gave the Islanders two big pieces.
Related: Brock Nelson Embodied the Islanders’ Latest Recent Success
That trade was all from Lamoriello, and the final day of the deadline was quiet. It’s typical of Lamoriello to take the safest path at the deadline and in free agency, and he did that by making only one trade. He didn’t overhaul the roster, but he didn’t “run it back” as he tends to do this time of year. It leaves the Islanders in a better spot, but not by much, and that’s ultimately what makes this trade deadline feel like a push. Not a win or a loss but somewhere in the middle.
Lamoriello Gets Strong Return in Nelson Trade
The Islanders need young NHL-ready players, prospects, and future draft picks, all of which they lack despite being a team that isn’t close to contention. So, Lamoriello traded Nelson for Calum Ritchie and a first-round draft pick. The timeline for a draft pick helping out the team is unknown, but Ritchie is a prospect who can be on the NHL roster as early as next season.
Nelson is an elite talent who multiple teams were looking to acquire at the deadline. That said, he wasn’t going to bring back a significant haul. At the most, the Islanders were getting three pieces in a return, and at the very least, he was bringing back two. Ideally, the Islanders would have gotten an NHL-ready player, but they got close to it with Ritchie, who is an elite forward prospect in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL).
The farm system isn’t great, and the American Hockey League (AHL) team is historically bad, as the Bridgeport Islanders are on pace to win 15 games this season. With the Ritchie addition, the Islanders have a few prospects with star potential, with Cole Eiserman, their 2024 first-round pick, looking great at the amateur level as well. It could allow the Islanders to retool faster than expected.
Lamoriello Holds Palmieri
The big knock on the Islanders and Lamoriello is that they kept Kyle Palmieri after trading Nelson. The return for Palmieri wasn’t going to be great, and he wants to stay with the Islanders, but moving him would help this team out in the big picture. Even if they got one piece, it would add youth to an aging team.
The Islanders want to re-sign Palmieri, who is an unrestricted free agent (UFA) after the season, and they probably can afford to do so while also keeping restricted free agents (RFA) Noah Dobson and Alexander Romanov. That’s not the point. The Islanders can’t keep pushing for playoff spots when they need to get younger and change things up. Trading Nelson was the start, but Palmieri would have allowed them to be a different group at the start of next season.
Islanders’ Otherwise Uneventful Deadline
For better or worse, the Islanders didn’t tear things down. Lamoriello could have moved Anders Lee and Jean-Gabriel Pageau, two veterans who will be free agents in the 2026 offseason, and to add more assets to the team. He didn’t trade them, and instead, there’s a trust that this roster can still keep this team competitive.
The problem is that Lamoriello, while not doing a fire sale, didn’t make any big moves to add players, either. He could have made a hockey trade, the same way the Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators did with a Dylan Cozens and Josh Norris swap (with a few extra pieces thrown in). Instead, Lamoriello is keeping the group together, minus Nelson.
The question is if that’s enough. The Islanders aren’t good enough to contend, and while they can make the playoffs, they can’t go on a playoff run. They won’t be in a position to land a top draft selection in the first round, either. Being stuck in the middle is sometimes the worst in sports, and the Islanders have been in the middle for the past few seasons and have no path out.
Islanders’ Path Forward
Despite trading Nelson, there’s still a path for the Islanders to make the playoffs. Sure, the loss of an elite talent will take a toll on the team, but they are in a good position to go on a run and sneak in as a playoff team. The roster is starting to return some key players, and with great defense and elite goaltending from Ilya Sorokin, they can win a lot of low-scoring games.
The bigger question is what this team’s ceiling is, not just this season but next season and the one after that. Even when everything goes right, they are a good but not great team. They aren’t built to win the Cup, and the moves they made (or lack of them) didn’t change that.
The Boston Bruins can be criticized for trading Brad Marchand, Brandon Carlo, Charlie Coyle, and Trent Frederic. Yet, they at least set themselves up for a rebuild with all the pieces they got back at the deadline. The Islanders need a reset, and they only added two pieces to help with that. Lamoriello’s history suggests it could have been worse, but it would have been better, and it wasn’t.
