A recent report by The Athletic listed New York Islanders general manager (GM) Lou Lamoriello as the least-trusted executive in the NHL (from ‘NHL front-office confidence rankings, 2024: How fans feel about every team,’ The Athletic, Aug. 6th, 2024). While the 81-year-old has had an up-and-down tenure on Long Island, this seems like a pretty egregious ranking, especially considering the Islanders’ success.
Lamoriello’s Highlights with the Islanders
While Lamoriello has undoubtedly made some poor decisions with the Islanders, he has also made many great moves. His first great move was hiring Barry Trotz as head coach in his inaugural season. The Stanley Cup-winning coach turned the franchise around, going 152-102-34 in four seasons with the team, tallying seven playoff series wins.
Lamoriello’s resume also boasts multiple great trades including the team’s acquisitions of Kyle Palmieri, Bo Horvat, and Alexander Romanov. Palmieri dominated during his first season with the Islanders. He scored seven goals in the 2021 Playoffs during the team’s Eastern Conference Final run. Horvat has been the answer to unlocking Mat Barzal’s offensive potential, and Romanov has seamlessly fit as a defensive partner to Noah Dobson.
Lamoriello has also drafted well. In 2018 he selected Dobson, a future All-Star, at 12th overall. In 2019 he drafted Simon Holmstrom and Samuel Bolduc, two players who have lengthy NHL careers ahead. In 2020 he took Alex Jefferies and William Dufour in the fourth and fifth rounds. In 2021 he took Aatu Raty, the headline asset in the Horvat trade, in the second round.
In 2022 Lamoriello selected Calle Odelius, Quinn Finley, Isaiah George, and Matthew Maggio in the second, third, fourth, and fifth rounds. In 2023 he selected Danny Nelson, Jesse Nurmi, and Zachary Schulz in the second, fourth, and sixth rounds. And in 2024 he landed projected top-10 pick Cole Eiserman at 20th overall as well as Jesse Pulkkinen and Kamil Bednarik, two prospects who had first-round grades by many, in the second round.
Related: New York Islanders Worst Contracts
Of course, many of the players listed above have yet to reach the NHL, but Lamoriello has continued to find value with the draft picks he has made. Even with the depleted prospect pool, he has added talent through trades, notably by landing the Islanders an extra 2024 second-round pick by moving back a few spots in the first two rounds.
Lamoriello also made the gutsy decision to let Robin Lehner leave in 2019 in favor of Semyon Varlamov. This decision helped the Islanders secure Ilya Sorokin due to his familiarity with Varlamov. As well, Varlamov was brilliant in the team’s deep 2020 playoff run while Lehner has not played an NHL game since 2022 due to injuries.
Lamoriello’s Lowlights with the Islanders
While Lamoriello has made some great decisions, he has also made some head-scratchers. His worst trade was sending Devon Toews to the Colorado Avalanche for two second-round picks. Even then, the value was bad, and Toews developing into the exact type of top-pairing defenseman the Islanders needed stings. Yet, the worst part of the deal was Lamoriello’s decision to move Toews while keeping Nick Leddy who began to decline following Toews’ departure.
Lamoriello’s most consistently disappointing decisions have come in contract negotiations. Currently, the Islanders have 13 players with no-trade clauses and eight players locked into contracts for four years or more. This strategy might make sense if the Islanders were a younger team expected to improve over time or if they were contenders who secured these deals at favorable prices. Unfortunately, neither is the case.
The worst of Lamoriello’s deals is Scott Mayfield, the Islanders’ third-pairing defenseman who, at 31 years old, is signed for six more seasons. His contract has a full no-trade clause that becomes a 16-team no-trade clause in the 2027 offseason. To be paying a bottom-pairing defenseman $3.5 million annually which is trade restrictions is baffling, regardless of the player’s caliber.
Another puzzling contract is Pierre Engvall’s—a career bottom-six winger whose game is entirely based on speed—who is signed for the next six seasons with a 16-team no-trade list. While he’s not a bad player and fits well with the Islanders, this is likely a contract that will be bought out before it reaches its end.
There are only two reasons to sign a player to a long-term contract. The first reason is to secure a franchise player who will not leave the team throughout their prime. For someone like Barzal, signing him as the franchise cornerstone to an eight-year contract was a no-brainer, even if the price was steep.
The second reason to sign a player to a long-term contract is to land them on a lower annual average than what a shorter-term deal would have cost. This is a tactic typically deployed by contending teams to ensure their players the financial security they are seeking while giving the team more cap flexibility in the short term. Unfortunately for the Islanders, Lamoriello did not employ either tactic on the majority of these contracts.
No current roster player’s annual average is a steal, at least for those signed long-term. Varlamov’s $2.75 million annual cap hit could fit the criteria, but even then his market value is likely $1 million or less higher than what he is getting paid. By paying the entire core fair value at best on long-term deals, Lamoriello has destroyed the team’s short and long-term cap flexibility.
Where Should Lamoriello Rank?
The question regarding where Lamoriello should rank ultimately comes down to philosophy. Looking at where he has led the Islanders throughout his tenure, it is clear he knows how to build a competitive team.
The Islanders have made the playoffs in five of Lamoriello’s six seasons and have had more playoff success than the majority of the league. However, he has set the team up for a decade of mediocrity with his contracts, so it makes sense why he does not have fan’s trust.
If I had to rank Lamoriello, he would likely be placed in the 20-25 range on this list. With the team he has built, he has put a product on the ice that has a genuine chance of beating any team on any given night. The Islanders were a goal away from likely winning the 2021 Stanley Cup, and the core has not changed much since then. To put general managers like Rob Blake ahead of Lamoriello is downright embarrassing.
While Lamoriello has led the Islanders to some success in his tenure, he has caused more harm than good. Of course, if he brought home a Stanley Cup the narrative would be different, but considering the future outlook of the team, there is a reason fans do not have confidence in the experienced GM.
