The big news on Long Island this week was Lou Lamoriello’s firing. It’s one that many saw coming and isn’t a shock after the New York Islanders’ terrible 2024-25 season, one that needed change, and it starts with the general manager (GM). After years of speculation about when the ownership group would step in and move on from Lamoriello, they finally did on Tuesday, April 22, saving a franchise that was in a downward spiral.
It wasn’t always this way. Lamoriello’s tenure is remembered for being a rough one, yet it looked entirely different a few years back. The Islanders were one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference shortly after he took over, and in the 2020 or 2021 offseason, it would be crazy to think that the GM would kickstart a collapse.
Related: The NHL Has Changed…the Islanders’ Lamoriello Hasn’t. It’s Time To Go
That’s what happened with Lamoriello, who not just let the NHL team slowly decline, but the organization as a whole heads into this summer looking like a mess. Yes, a new GM will be intrigued by a handful of players on the roster and some prospects but the Islanders lack depth, are an older group, have one of the worst farm systems in the NHL, and have an American Hockey League (AHL) team that is coming off a historically bad season (one where they played seven months of hockey and won four games at home).
It’s easy to blame Lamoriello for all the issues and make him the scapegoat. That said, it wasn’t long ago he was seen as the GM who saved the Islanders. This team was going nowhere before he arrived and wasn’t relevant (on a national level, that is) for three decades, and he turned them into a contender overnight. It’s where the journey began with Lamoriello, and it ends on the other side, where the Islanders feel like they are in a similar spot, one that fans from the 1990s and 2000s are all too familiar with.
To Lamoriello’s Credit, He Made the Islanders Relevant Immediately
When Lamoriello was hired in the 2018 offseason, the first big move he made was bringing in Barry Trotz to be the head coach. The Islanders had some talent, and even with the inevitable departure of John Tavares, they had key contributors in the forward unit and the defense that, with the right system, could play competitive hockey.
A lot of the credit goes to Trotz, and understandably so. This is a team that couldn’t defend or play disciplined hockey before he arrived, and suddenly they had the best defensive unit in the league. The Islanders reached the second round in the 2019 Playoffs, and everything was starting to fall into place.
Lamoriello gets credit for what happened next. He never made a big move to get the Islanders over the hump but there was always an urge to upgrade the roster and never downgrade. It was the minor additions that made the biggest differences from acquiring Andy Greene to round out the defense, adding Semyon Varlamov to split starts with Thomas Griess, or making a trade for Jean-Gabriel Pageau to strengthen the team up the middle. Slowly, the Islanders became one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference, pushing the Tampa Bay Lightning to the brink in the 2020 and 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
During the best of times came the warning signs that the other shoe would drop. Teams can buy in all they want and make a push for the Cup, but like a credit card, eventually that payment must be made. Lamoriello kept pushing despite the consequences of it coming back to bite the Islanders. He kept moving draft selections and prospects for veterans in moves that at the time worked out, like the Kyle Palmieri trade at the 2021 Trade Deadline.
None of this was on anyone’s mind when the Islanders made those deep playoff runs. It was far from it. What stands out from the early seasons is Josh Bailey’s overtime goal in Game 1 in the first round of the 2019 series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, a goal that fueled a sweep. Or the Casey Cizikas overtime breakaway goal in Game 2 against the Boston Bruins to help kickstart an upset in the 2021 second round. Or arguably the best moment from the era, Anthony Beauvillier’s Game 6 overtime goal against the Lightning, a goal that forced a Game 7 and closed out Nassau Coliseum in style. It was a great run, and for all of Lamoriello’s criticisms, it’s hard to say this era happened without him as the GM.
Where the Decline Started
It all circles back to Trotz’s firing in the 2022 offseason, at least when the common fan is asked where everything started falling apart. It can be traced back even further. The 2021 offseason was a big one for the Islanders as they were on the cusp of a Cup but needed a piece or two to get them to the finish line.
The answer, at least for Lamoriello, was to re-sign a lot of the key players on the roster already. Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock both received long-term deals as the presumed anchors of the defense. The problem is that following all the moves, the Islanders had no answer for the loss of Nick Leddy, who Lamoriello traded to open up cap space, and Jordan Eberle, who was selected by the Seattle Kraken in the expansion draft.
Pair the Leddy trade with the Devon Toews trade from the offseason before, and the Islanders didn’t have a third-pairing defenseman. Lamoriello’s answer was Zdeno Chara, a veteran who could round out the unit. The move was a disaster. Chara was slow and couldn’t move the puck, the opposite of what Leddy was, and it allowed opponents to maintain the puck in the Islanders’ zone and gash them on the rush, especially when the latter pairings were on the ice.
Chara, like Lamoriello himself, was great in a different era. In 2021-22, the game had passed him by. It was faster, and defensemen needed to keep up, not just with the opposition but also to help turn defense into instant offense. The defense as a whole took a step back because of him.
That leads to the 2022 offseason and Lamoriello’s decision to fire Trotz. In a vacuum, it wasn’t a bad move since he was losing the locker room, and the team looked worse. However, the decision was a bad one, largely because great coaches are hard to find. When a team has a great one, they must do what they can to keep them, even if it means moving out players who are talented but don’t want to buy into the system. The other issue with the Trotz firing was the subsequent hirings, with Lane Lambert’s tenure being a mess and Patrick Roy’s having its highs, but overall is uninspiring. Lamoriello doesn’t take as much heat if he hires the right coach. He didn’t, and it’s why the Islanders are where they are.
The Islanders in one offseason went from a team that felt like it was playing in the glory days to a team that was chasing it. That’s what embodied the final few seasons of the Lamoriello era, starting in the 2022-23 season, one that saw the team slowly decline and become one of the worst in the NHL.
Lamoriello: The Silent Killer
The 2022 offseason was where the Isanders could have returned to the contender conversation. The roster was good enough to make the playoffs, it just needed that extra spark. After acquiring Alexander Romanov during the 2022 NHL Entry Draft, it looked like the Islanders were one forward away from making it happen. Instead, Lamoriello did nothing. He didn’t make a big signing or upgrade the roster in free agency and instead trusted the group in place.
The two big moves on the table were signing Nazem Kadri or taking a swing and trading for Matthew Tkachuk. It’s easy to look at Kadri’s tenure with the Calgary Flames and assume he wouldn’t work out with the Islanders, after all, he was a 31-year-old skater on the decline, something the team already had too many of. It’s also easy to look at the price to land Tkachuk and assume it wouldn’t be worthwhile for the Islanders (imagine having to trade Mathew Barzal, Noah Dobson, and a top draft pick to make it happen).
The thing is that Kadri on a rebuilding team like the Flames isn’t a good idea. For an Islanders team that was all in, that was the move they needed. He was the player who would have gotten them over the hump. The same is true about Tkachuk. At the time, it looked like the Florida Panthers overpaid to get him, moving MacKenzie Weegar and Jonathan Huberdeau in the trade, yet look at them now. The Panthers reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2023, won the Cup in 2024, and look like they might win it again this year.
The fear of making a big move that would backfire became the Islanders’ identity under Lamoriello. Free agency is generally a terrible way to build a contender, and the moves rarely work out. At the same time, great teams must make a splash or two once in a while, and conversely, doing nothing ends up setting a team back further. Lamoriello’s free agency tenure was defined by doing nothing, and it continued to set the Islanders back.
Lamoriello’s Lasting Legacy in the NHL
Lamoriello is at a low point in his GM tenure as he’s been fired from his third team, and at 82 years old, it looks like his days in the NHL are done. However, it’s hard to deny his impact on the league and the success he’s had. He won three Stanley Cup titles with the New Jersey Devils and helped an Islanders team that was going nowhere before he arrived reach the playoffs five of the seven seasons he was their GM.
He was a great executive when it came to getting a team that was going nowhere into a competitive state, and it’s why there’s still a slight chance another team will give him a call (the Buffalo Sabres are the one that comes to mind). Even if the impact wasn’t long-term, it was immediate.
The problems are twofold with Lamoriello. His style is outdated, and it shows in how the Islanders have looked in recent seasons. Then there’s the issue that he’s always pushing to contend and never resetting or retooling. Even the latest trade deadline was underwhelming as he avoided selling at all costs and eventually traded Brock Nelson, but only Nelson and nobody else.
By firing Lamoriello, the Islanders are prepared to move into a new era. The only downside is that his time in the NHL ends with a whimper and not a bang, considering the impact he’s had on the game. In many ways, it felt fitting that his time with the Islanders ended as Matt Martin retired. Martin was one of the first trades Lamoriello made as the GM, and the fourth-liner became a key part of the “Identity Line” along with the team’s overall identity. It’s the end of an era, and the Islanders are suddenly searching for a new identity.
