New York Islanders: Mathieu Darche is named GM of the New York Islanders

[LeapOnOver]

Guess I'm a little bit more jaded than most but my excitement is more nervous than anything else. Darche's GM ability could either put the Isles in an upswing or start a lengthy stay of misery. No one has that answer. We'll have to wait and see, but nervous is the overwhelming emotion I'm feeling.

 

[periferal]

Guess I'm a little bit more jaded than most but my excitement is more nervous than anything else. Darche's GM ability could either put the Isles in an upswing or start a lengthy stay of misery. No one has that answer. We'll have to wait and see, but nervous is the overwhelming emotion I'm feeling.

Serious question...

What would you say your nervousness is one a scale of 1 to 10 with Darche as GM? And then answer the same if any of these people were GM right now...

• Ken Holland
• Lou Lamoriello
• Jarmo Kekäläinen
• Marc Bergevin
• Chris Lamoriello

 

[periferal]

If you watch the "Darche" segment here, I think these guys were totally on point...

 

[BMOK33]

Re: the Covid Era Discourse on this team:

'22 first year at UBS, team was wrecked by COVID-19 injuries. They returned to a playoff level team in '23 and '24 but quickly ousted by Carolina.

'21 we were legit, we were a strong team in that weird Division Only season and the playoffs were legit. Probably the strongest Isles team of my 30 year old fandom.

'20 is the season where the pause greatly benefitted this team. They were floundering and the pause and Play-In saved them.

'19 we saw prime Trotz-Effect, that team was legit. Laid foundation for the next few seasons.

CBJ/NYR were playing at just unsustainable levels when COVID hit in 2020. I think the Isles probably would have gotten in when it was over anyway as there was just no way those two were going to keep playing .800 hockey for another month

 

[Big L]

Darche making most of 2nd career, hired as Islanders general manager | NHL.com

2-time Stanley Cup winner with Lightning got college degree before playing 250 NHL games over 9 seasons

www.nhl.com

 

[LeapOnOver]

Serious question...

What would you say your nervousness is one a scale of 1 to 10 with Darche as GM? And then answer the same if any of these people were GM right now...

• Ken Holland
• Lou Lamoriello
• Jarmo Kekäläinen
• Marc Bergevin
• Chris Lamoriello

1 least nervous - 10 most nervous:
Ken Holland - 5
LL - 8
Jarmo - 4
Bergevin - 4
Chris L - 10
Darche - 7

 

[Kevin27nyi]

One thing I’ll look for out of him is creativity.

Always bothered me Lou would never pick up a 3-5 round pick just to help broker a deal for cap space. Darche mentioned that in an interview. Lightning always trade picks so that was a way to recoup a draft selection.

If he can work in a salary deference on any of Holmstrom, Romanov or Dobson that would be huge. Jarvis I think was only like 600K but all of that matters and we know it.

Another thing to attract talent; Lou phased out signing bonuses. They were used by Snow but Lou gave Lee, Eberle and I think Nelson first year signing bonuses but since everything was straight from Barzal and Horvat to Engvall and Mayfield.

If we want to compete for better talent in free agency or lower AAV I hope we see signing bonuses brought back.

 

[LeapOnOver]

One thing I’ll look for out of him is creativity.

Always bothered me Lou would never pick up a 3-5 round pick just to help broker a deal for cap space. Darche mentioned that in an interview. Lightning always trade picks so that was a way to recoup a draft selection.

If he can work in a salary deference on any of Holmstrom, Romanov or Dobson that would be huge. Jarvis I think was only like 600K but all of that matters and we know it.

Another thing to attract talent; Lou phased out signing bonuses. They were used by Snow but Lou gave Lee, Eberle and I think Nelson first year signing bonuses but since everything was straight from Barzal and Horvat to Engvall and Mayfield.

If we want to compete for better talent in free agency or lower AAV I hope we see signing bonuses brought back.

Good observations and I concur with all of it.

 

[mm11]

Serious question...

What would you say your nervousness is one a scale of 1 to 10 with Darche as GM? And then answer the same if any of these people were GM right now...

• Ken Holland
• Lou Lamoriello
• Jarmo Kekäläinen
• Marc Bergevin
• Chris Lamoriello

Interesting question: The above list has been part of 7 Stanley Cup Championships. (mostly in a GM role)

So can understand some poster's nervousness with the "new" guy.

Taking that into consideration, the new guy appeared to play an important cog on (2) recent cups. So we got that going for us

 

[Lek]

I am pretty sure everyone involved as well as us are a bit nervous and so they would be with any choice. As with any GM.....there will be moves we all will love, like, are meh about and outright hate. But this is the right guy for now and i look forward to seeing what is in store over the next 2-3 years.

 

[doublechili]

I hope Darche makes enough moves that we dislike some of them.

Lou was afraid to make moves, evidenced by the fact that of the few moves he made an inordinate number of them involved players he was already familiar with, along with his propensity to extend guys who probably would have been best let go (or at least extended for less term).

 

[doublechili]

I see that the intro press conference is this Thursday. That's enough time to maybe make a decision on some of his staff (letting people go and/or hiring new people).

I really don't know how this will work with the draft coming up so soon. You have to think they'll rely on the current scouting staff mostly/entirely, but assuming Darche is running the draft I wonder if he might bring in some people right away? He's been on the radar for positions for a while now, so I'm sure he's thought about who he might hire and probably even talked to some people in the past about the possibility.

 

[Glorydays22]

1 least nervous - 10 most nervous:
Ken Holland - 5
LL - 8
Jarmo - 4
Bergevin - 4
Chris L - 10
Darche - 7

wow really?

 

[SI90]

Big man on campus has reported for work!

 

[leeroggy]

I'm just big on remaining a fan of a team in your home city. And for life! It's like a family member- you're not only born with it but stuck for life. For me it's the Isles, Yankees, Giants, Knicks and Ohio State (I went there).

Tier 1
NY Islanders and Hobart Lacrosse

Tier 2
Other Hobart and William Smith sports

Tier 3
NY Jets (Lacrosse means no to baseball and basketball) and Florida High School/College lacrosse teams playing out of state foes

Bottom of the Barrel
The Dolphins, Syracuse Lacrosse, the Rangers, Paul Rabil, the KGB, the CCP and Hamas

 

[periferal]

1 least nervous - 10 most nervous:
Ken Holland - 5
LL - 8
Jarmo - 4
Bergevin - 4
Chris L - 10
Darche - 7

Well not sure why you'd be the least nervous with former GMs that literally failed at their previous stops (and no one else wants them now).

That said I guess you can take solace that you'd even be more nervous if the Isles did nothing and kept Lou.

 

[Mr Misunderstood]

Tier 1
NY Islanders and Hobart Lacrosse

Tier 2
Other Hobart and William Smith sports

Tier 3
NY Jets (Lacrosse means no to baseball and basketball) and Florida High School/College lacrosse teams playing out of state foes

Bottom of the Barrel
The Dolphins, Syracuse Lacrosse, the Rangers, Paul Rabil, the KGB, the CCP and Hamas

 

[Mr Misunderstood]

Serious question...

What would you say your nervousness is one a scale of 1 to 10 with Darche as GM? And then answer the same if any of these people were GM right now...

• Ken Holland
• Lou Lamoriello
• Jarmo Kekäläinen
• Marc Bergevin
• Chris Lamoriello

Chris L would be a 47

 

[periferal]

One thing I’ll look for out of him is creativity.

Always bothered me Lou would never pick up a 3-5 round pick just to help broker a deal for cap space. Darche mentioned that in an interview. Lightning always trade picks so that was a way to recoup a draft selection.

If he can work in a salary deference on any of Holmstrom, Romanov or Dobson that would be huge. Jarvis I think was only like 600K but all of that matters and we know it.

Another thing to attract talent; Lou phased out signing bonuses. They were used by Snow but Lou gave Lee, Eberle and I think Nelson first year signing bonuses but since everything was straight from Barzal and Horvat to Engvall and Mayfield.

If we want to compete for better talent in free agency or lower AAV I hope we see signing bonuses brought back.

Amen bother.

Lou is literally a dinosaur with his thinking. He's like a Pontiac from the 1980's trying to sell itself as a premium vehicle in today's market.

The game has changed and thus the way you have to GM has changed. He refused to adapt (or just couldn't) and alas here we are with someone who is about 35 years younger and embraces the modern game by incorporating things like analytics.

And let us not forget...Throughout his time here there was almost no chance for Lou to use the cap to get us extra assets. In fact during the past 6 years no GM made more "salary dump" trades than Lou. The Vegas Knights spend more on salaries than us, didn't need to ship out multiple 2nd round picks to get rid of bad contracts, and managed to win a Cup. You can say they "gamed" the system and that's cool, but Lou never would have even been able to land any of Stone, Eichel, Pietrangelo, or Hertl...despite trading away 4 1st rounders on other players.

Just so relieved Lou is gone. Everything about him is the opposite of how I'd want a GM to operate my favorite team.

 

[periferal]

I am pretty sure everyone involved as well as us are a bit nervous and so they would be with any choice. As with any GM.....there will be moves we all will love, like, are meh about and outright hate. But this is the right guy for now and i look forward to seeing what is in store over the next 2-3 years.

When I think about Darche running things I get slightly nervous...But then it quickly gets washed over with excitement over Lou being gone and what Darche can be.

Lou's GMing made my anywhere from irate to apathetic about where we were headed. So if the other choice instead of those emotions is nervousness because something is new, I'll take nervousness 1000% of the time.

 

[periferal]

I see that the intro press conference is this Thursday. That's enough time to maybe make a decision on some of his staff (letting people go and/or hiring new people).

Where did you see what announcement?

 

[GM4Hire]

Darche will be judged on what he does not what he says, most of all GM's have varying degrees of success but unless you win it all, it's never enough and not many get there.

I think the excitement around Darche is more that we don't have LOU's philosophy around anymore and the mess left behind is going to push Darche front and center over the next few weeks.

I think we had a few Greer haters early when he had to move out bad contracts but, in the end, he has done a great job to date positioning them for success.

 

[periferal]

Chris L would be a 47

You're being generous.

Getting rid of Lou to hire Chris would've turned us into the Sabres.

 

[JKP]

I see that the intro press conference is this Thursday. That's enough time to maybe make a decision on some of his staff (letting people go and/or hiring new people).

I really don't know how this will work with the draft coming up so soon. You have to think they'll rely on the current scouting staff mostly/entirely, but assuming Darche is running the draft I wonder if he might bring in some people right away? He's been on the radar for positions for a while now, so I'm sure he's thought about who he might hire and probably even talked to some people in the past about the possibility.

I’d say there is a 0% chance he can bring someone from TBL’s scouting team prior to July 1. He could bring in someone who doesn’t have an NHL gig right now, but why bother this close, just use the guys we have for now as is SOP for most GMs hired at this time of year.

 

[JKP]

I’m cautiously optimistic, but I also wasn’t a big Lou hater. The team needs some retooling, but I’ll be shocked if Darche makes a ton of changes this year.