A few weeks back, the New York Islanders looked like a team going nowhere. They stumbled down the stretch to finish a forgettable 2024-25 season, fired general manager (GM) Lou Lamoriello, and were staring at a team with no path to contention. Now, they have plenty of avenues to both contend and rebuild with more than enough optimism. It’s all because they won the draft lottery and will have the number one pick in the 2025 NHL Entry Draft.
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Suddenly, the Islanders GM job is an attractive one for any executive. Whoever replaces Lamoriello will select an elite talent, and with a handful of pieces already on the roster, they can make this team great by the start of next season or take a longer approach to build the Islanders into a juggernaut.
The question is how attractive the Islanders are. Does one pick change everything? It sure helps, but there are plenty of question marks surrounding this team. The Islanders are not a mess or the worst spot for a GM to come in and try to turn around, but they aren’t an ideal spot either.
Islanders Have a Core Already in Place
The best part about taking over as the GM is that there are some players already on the roster to build around, and now there’s a top pick sprinkled in as well. Bo Horvat and Mathew Barzal are the top-six forwards, while Alexander Romanov is a staple of the defense (so is Noah Dobson, depending on who you ask). Add in goaltender Ilya Sorokin, and the Islanders have a good core that, with depth added to it, can become a top team in the Eastern Conference.
One of the common issues with prospect development is dropping elite players on a team with no help and asking them to do too much. This team won’t have that issue, and instead, the Islanders can insert a prospect into the lineup without worrying about setting them back. Michael Misa won’t be asked to center the top line on day one, and he’ll have help in the top six. Matthew Schaefer won’t need to be a top-pair defenseman right away, and in case he’s ready to do so, he’ll have Romanov by his side, a stay-at-home defenseman to cancel out his rookie mistakes.
Whoever takes over can retool on the fly because of how the roster is built. At the same time, the core has its downsides. It’s good but not great. At best, the Islanders have the star power to make it to the playoffs but not much further, as the 2023 First Round and the 2024 First Round showed. It’s why, in some ways, they need the top pick to be a special talent, a player who can take over games. Or, at the very least, the Islanders need their top pick to be someone to lead the next wave of prospects.
A New Wave of Prospects Is Coming
If the Islanders struck gold with the top pick, then selecting Cole Eiserman was discovering silver. He was the best player on the board in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft, who kept sliding until Lamoriello selected him with the 18th overall pick. Eiserman is a great shooter and a scorer who will be a staple in the top six, a prospect the Islanders can look forward to down the road.
It’s not just Eiserman, for the Islanders have a few other young skaters as well, looking to make an impact down the road. Calum Ritchie was acquired in the Brock Nelson trade, and he has top-six upside at the NHL level. Kamil Bednarik and Danny Nelson are also two forwards to watch down the road, while Isaiah George, in flashes, proved he can be a reliable defenseman. Aside from Ritchie, these prospects don’t look like they’ll become stars at the NHL level. However, they can add depth, and that’s what the Islanders need.
A new GM isn’t starting from scratch. Instead, there’s something to work with in the short term and a lot to work with in the long run. It makes drafting and rebuilding a possible path, and one that a GM with time will probably take. Lamoriello had an urge to have the Islanders in win-now mode, a new GM won’t, and it’s why the team can set itself up for a successful rebuild or even a retool if they want, knowing they have the pieces in place to do it.
Islanders’ Lack of Depth Is Concerning
The Lamoriello era Islanders were defined by their depth. They didn’t have a top-heavy roster and relied on four forward lines and three defense pairings to get the job done. The final two seasons of Lamoriello’s tenure were far from that. They didn’t get much offense outside of their top six, and the defense didn’t show up outside of the top pair. To make matters worse, they didn’t have a reliable backup for Sorokin once Semyon Varlamov went down with an injury, and they hung their elite goaltender out to dry.
Looking at the Islanders, they are a team with glaring weaknesses throughout the roster. It’s not just at the NHL level either, the prospect pool lacks the pieces to help. The Bridgeport Islanders, the American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, were historically bad, and there aren’t many (if any) skaters on the team who can make it to the NHL. A new GM has a lot to address, and this is a team stuck in the middle because of it.
The Other Reasons the Islanders GM Job Isn’t So Attractive
Lamoriello didn’t leave the Islanders a mess. However, he did put them in a tough spot. The biggest issues are the contracts, as they have a lot of them and tough ones to move at that. The Pierre Engvall deal has five years left on it, and so does Scott Mayfield’s contract, while Anthony Duclair signed a four-year deal in the 2024 offseason, and one season in, it already looks like a regrettable deal. A buyout is possible with some of their aging veterans, but it’s still a tough pivot.
The other problem is that the Islanders are stuck in the middle. They aren’t a good enough team to buy in and become a Cup contender, and aren’t bad enough to bottom out and start over from scratch. Even if Misa, Schaefer, or anyone the Islanders select is a generational talent, the team has a lot of work to do before they are in the same conversation as the top teams in the Eastern Conference.
It’s what makes team building in the NHL so fascinating. The Islanders won the lottery, and it doesn’t guarantee anything. The top pick is a good step in the right direction, but that’s all it is, a step. This team isn’t the ideal spot, and any GM will have their hands full regardless of the path they take.
