I’m with you on your view of Nelson. Always have been. And that is not to say that I want to trade him. It is to say that Nelson would likely get the best return for us.
Roster/Rumors/Speculation/Trade Talk - 2023-24: Hotel California
- Thread starter PK Cronin
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Letting the older players age out, walk away, and replacing them with in-house solutions is not a retool on the fly. That is a rebuild.
To me a retool on the fly is trading away 1 or 2 players off the NHL roster and patching a hole with the return.
The way things materialized over the last 2 summers, a rebuild is exactly where this thing is heading.
The rebuild/reload discusion is premature. If Barzal + NYI are on the same page through midseason, things move forward until the offseason. If Barzal struggles with the team/system as he did last year, and the team is not doing well, I think there's a good chance he will get dealt. And if he is moved for futures (as opposed to a roster trade), I think that dealing Sorokin could follow, because I doubt he will resign for a rebuild when there will be a huge demand for him. If otoh NYI + Barzal do well, they keep the band together as well as they can. That's how I see things - Barzal's season makes or breaks this team, and we'll have a pretty good idea by New Year's what's up.
Even if the team is mucking by 7th-10th in the conference on the strength of the Nelson, Pageau lines + the D, I think NYI will really need to make a decision on Barzal. Because if Barzal isn't as good as 2019-2020/2020-2021 Barzal, even if this team squeeks in the playoffs they'll be out in 1 round.
Even if the team is mucking by 7th-10th in the conference on the strength of the Nelson, Pageau lines + the D, I think NYI will really need to make a decision on Barzal. Because if Barzal isn't as good as 2019-2020/2020-2021 Barzal, even if this team squeeks in the playoffs they'll be out in 1 round.
This. 100 times this.
And regarding your 1st paragraph. A rebuild is not going to happen before the TDL because Lou committed to this core for one more year. I am simply voicing my position behind a rebuild because I don't think Lou has a winning hand for this season.
IslesNorway
Registered User
The deals given to Lee and Palmieri were terrible and will most likely be anchors a year or two from now. Pageau is young enough to turn a corner but if his play doesn't pick up the upcoming season, then that one will look pretty awful too. The 6 years given to Cizikas is not too bad in terms on AAV but the final years of that deal will be paid to an AHL player if he continues where he left off last season,.
It all comes down to if these guys can turn their game around and not continue their downward spiral. Lee is very good at what he does and gets the goals still, and I hope he can keep it up, but if he doesn't it looks pretty bad.
As long as the cap rises those kinds of deals can be hidden, but if there's deflation in the economy will not the cap actually go down? Then what?
To me a retool on the fly is anything that has you in the discussion as a contender year for year while constantly avoiding having to go through a full-out rebuild.
It can be achieved through pure lateral moves and signings, or through constantly replacing players from within through strong drafting (usually in later rounds if you're always in the Cup discussion) without skipping a beat in being highly competitive in a contending manner. It can be a combination of the two.
For most teams, it has to be the latter.
A rebuild is tearing it down, living with several years of bottom five finishes, and making use of high draft picks and draft positions to (re)build from the bottom up.
I don't see us heading in that direction whatsoever. Nor is it necessary.
We've already got the pillars (i.e. Sorokin, Dobson, Barzal) to constantly rotate around them on the fly and be a contender all the while.
I just don't know if we have front office to let guys fade out while bringing in the few kids we've got to replace them adequately? I also am not certain our scouting staff has the acumen to keep bringing in pieces with few darts and while drafting primarily in later rounds?
But the possibility to contend regularly is there without having to rebuild.
The Real JT
The percentage you’re paying is too high priced
While I agree with you that Barzal could be on the block by year’s end if he doesn’t rediscover his prior productivity, I differ with you regarding Sorokin.
Sorokin is one of the few untouchables on this team in addition to Pelech and Dobson.
I would absolutely *prefer* to sign him long-term. However, if he goes into summer 2023 offseason with a NYI team that did not make the playoffs in 2022-2023, I do not think that he will want to resign when he could control his destination as a UFA in his prime. If I'm wrong about that, great.
The Real JT
The percentage you’re paying is too high priced
I think we’re mostly in agreement but for a native Russian player, NY (even if it’s the Isles and UBS), is a big draw. Throw in a guy like Romanov and that doesn’t hurt.
Assuming Sorokin continues his solid play, the Isles will pay him well. He stays.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't think we have the cards, even with a foundation of Sorokin, Dobson, Pelech, Pulock. And for me that is also factoring in Raty and Dufour down the line in 2023-24. And since my view of Barzal is that of a 2nd line center, I think we have even less of a foundation than you envision.
And we've had enough posts on the definition of retool versus rebuild. The hodgepodge of forwards we have are never going to get us to Top 4 in the Eastern Conference, and I don't us getting enough replacements to cycle in/out of that group, either via trade or in-house.
I see our ceiling as 3rd in the Metro or one of the wild cards, and that isn’t contending for the cup every year.
The Real JT
The percentage you’re paying is too high priced
While that could work it would mean that we would have to consistently hit on two or more draft picks every year while not trading away those higher picks that are more likely to succeed. That’s not Lou’s m.o.
Considering the current talent level on offense, the plan to let the less desirable contracts expire makes it exceedingly likely that we will be treading water for the next few years. Meanwhile other teams with young talent, Ottawa for example, might leapfrog us.
I’ll continue to believe in this team but so many things need to go right.
As long as the blueline and two goalies are healthy and rearing from the get-go, this team will be on a playoff spot from start to finish.
Say what one will, the forward group has enough scoring by committee to win a lot of those 2-1, 3-2, 4-3 games more times than not as long as the aforementioned prerequisite is given.
The top five we have on D and the two men we have in goal outweigh the great majority of the conference in those respective positions.
As I see it, the kind of failure we experienced last season won't set in unless the same kind of dubious cirumstances set in AND all these guys go on the scoring droubts most experienced in the first half of last season. The 13-game road trip is already a non-factor this time around.
So, I just don't see that happening.
In other words, it'll take blueline and goaltending injuries for this team to find itself outside of a playoff spot for any length of time.
BARZAL and SOROKIN:
Anything is ultimately possible, but these guys and Dobson are the backbone of the team over the next 7-10 years. The distance which this franchise can ultimately go will be determined by the heights these three players spearhead this team to. If you believe in them and their ability to one day be our Vasilevsky/Hedman/Kucherov or Makar/MacKinnon/Rantanen style trifecta, then they're currently surrounded by a very adequate group.
Everyone just has to find a way to perform consistently in the regular season and then pick up in the playoffs - which this group of players has proven it can do.
I won't weigh in on Palmieri for obvious reasons (and because he essentially is the one-for-one replacement of Eberle, for better or worse), but to call the Lee deal "terrible" is to completely ignore the circumstances surrounding it and his meaning to this team in facets of the game that go far beyond his 50 points in a season.
We discussed that several times the past month and I think you'll find that most here understand fully that Lou had absolutely no choice but to give this man what he was getting on the open market anyway.
Pageau is what he is, namely a third line center who displays great intangibles when the games start to mean something.
In light of what is profile is and his age as well, the length of his contract won't be a problem. And if we think he's getting a prettier chunk of change than he should be, ask yourself if he'd have gotten that on the open market.
No worries. If and when Cizikas can't help this team anymore, he and his contract will fade away into oblivion in the same manner as Komarov did.
That applies for Martin too.
And both are very likely going to have a spot in this organization when they can no longer swim in this league properly. And they should. They're integral parts of the Long Island organization and family.
I understand everyone's worry. Lou has clearly put all his eggs in this basket.
In light of what these guys did prior to last season, the extenuous circumstances of last season, the very little regeneration time the boys have had in the Pandemic-related scheduling, the fact that they've all had Covid along the way, the impact several injuries have had, and the continued growth of our youngsters - most importantly Dobson, Wahlstrom, Bellows, and now Romanov - much speaks for this group of athletes and their continuity rebounding this season.
If not, then that's gotta be heavily chalked up against the GM and places the onus on the owners to determine if a course change is required.
For sure, when Lee and Pageau were signed, there was no pandemic and there was a foreseeable steady growth in cap space.
Those were pre-Covid deals. Hopefully, things continue to normalize and, as you mention, the cap continues to expand in the coming years (even if that helps a few of our opponents in this conference more than it does us).
Lou cannot be moving anymore firsts for a while. I think many of us here have been (rightly) adamant about that.
Teams that have not been winning cups are not in the habit of trading their first year after year, yet here we are.
And in light of how strong the 2023 draft is shaping up to be, it would be an incredibly short-sighted venture to be moving one's 4th straight first rounder.
Alas, that's what Lou does. If this team if flirting with home ice advantage in the playoffs and seems to have one clear-cut weakness to be dealt with, I'm pretty certain that first will be on the line at the deadline.
As for drafting, well, I mentioned earlier that despite how strange some of our drafting habits have been (and I truly think Lou let's this staff do their thing with the average of 5 picks he affords them every summer), we can fortunately still look at Raty and Dufour as true hopefuls in the near future while Holmstrom looks like he can still help as a Parise/Bailey replacement in the coming years.
But what really sticks out to me is that other teams who generally have had few picks in recent years (i.e. a Pittsburgh or San Jose) spend every spring and summer adding the odd European free agent and college free agent and CHLer who was overlooked or just not signed by the team that drafted him.
We don't do that.
But they don't have our structure and our continuity. They sure as shit don't have our toughness. And I don't think they have our coaching staff, even if Lambert is technically a newbie (damn, has he been around a lot of winning while on the bench).
Don't worry about these teams with draft picks galore and a whole bunch of kids in top six roles who just got out of diapers a month ago.
What's crucial for our continued success (should last season prove to have been a bump in the road) is that when guys start fading, the few kids we have are ready to be injected into the line-up. That will then be part of the growth and transition that coaching and management will have to oversee. And some teams do it wonderfully; some don't.
That's for sure!
It’s not the offense by committee that troubles me, although it does require every forward to be around their career bests. It’s the way we have trouble defending against fast skating teams. That was a problem for us long before Andy Greene and Zdeno Chara got here. It wasn’t the problem it is now in my eyes, because 3 seasons ago the only skating teams in our conference were the Pens, Bolts, Leafs and Habs. Now we have to contend with them (not so much the Lightning as they don’t excel at the transition like they used to, but still deadly enough) plus the Rags, CBJ, Sabres, Panthers, Hurricanes. Those are teams we’re going to see a lot of. Then there’s the teams from the Western Conference. Our forwards aren’t fast to begin with. I can’t imagine they got any faster while becoming a year older.Until I see that our forwards can get back against those teams and not get blown past at center ice, I have no reason to believe we’ll be able to bottle up teams.
The Real JT
The percentage you’re paying is too high priced
Well at least you didn’t include the Leafs in your list.
Remember the good old days when we marveled at PJB’s offseason skating routine that would lift his skill set and speed for the following year along with the skills of his teammates that were fortunate enough to be included?
BelovedIsles
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- Oct 22, 2005
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Agreed, especially with your last point. That said, with a savvy GM, they could retool in two years and not necessarily meander through a complete tear-down rebuild. There are too many good players that are pre-prime or just entering their primes. There's this macro belief (fed by the Blackhawks and Pens of the hockey world) that a full rebuild is the route to stable success. It doesn't usually work out that way. So many variables have to come together, and at the right times. Ottawa, AZ, Buffalo, NJ, Montreal, Anaheim, and others are doing the 'full rebuild;' I bet only 1-2 of these teams becomes true, consistent Cup contenders.
Doshell Propivo
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- Dec 5, 2005
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Doshell Propivo
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You have to play the cards you're dealt. Every GM would love to have the team you describe above, but it's not very realistic.
I'd rather grind my way through the post season now, with this core, rather than tearing it down (again) and miss the playoffs in hopes of a brighter future that may never come.
I dunno, I think a lot of that was about coaching. NYI went from being basically man to man under Weight to soft zone coverage under Trotz. NYI would get out-possessed by design, but it got worse last year because the less mobile D needed so much help from wingers along the boards. With a defense that skates this well, I'd like to see them be a bit more aggressive -at least with the top 2 pairings on the ice.
The really bad matchups for NYI imo are teams with very mobile offensive D who outmatch the wingers covering them. Like f'ing Letang.
My concern now is that we’re bringing back a majority of the Trotz team from 2018-2020 that had those troubles defending agajnst speed. And even though the defense corps will be more mobile (hopefully at the level they were when Leddy and Boychuk were a pair), that still relies on the unit helping out our forwards-many another year older and another year slower.
In my opinion, a lot of our year will ride on how Lane Lambert pivots from Trotz while facing these issues.
Mike C
Registered User
maybe Lou, and many of us, got a little taken in by the 2 runs prior to last season and felt that the team was better than it really is
in any short series, the style of play and players, with a coach like Barry can beat anyone. in an long 82 game season, this group doesn't have the legs and is susceptible to fatigue and injuries because of the age and mileage on them collectively to play that way for 6 months vs short series bursts.
with these guys, getting in and and hoping for the best, i think, is the best we can hope for. having a perennial contender will take better, younger and faster players.
as has been stated. I'm not sure Lou and a fledgling coach are the combo to give us that.
i think this season can go either way but back in the early 80s, when both teams sucked to beat the band, a player told me once "even the mets and cubs have hope in spring training"
everyone's tied for 1st going in.
Let's Go Islanders!!
I agree with this. Lou and Barry had a team that was more than the sum of their parts; overachievers. Built to grind you down in a 7 game series, but will get outskated by the Wild on a random night in February.
As @PK Cronin has said, we’re a team built for the playoffs that struggles with the regular season.
The Real JT
The percentage you’re paying is too high priced
Great post Mike. The first part about being “taken in by the 2 runs prior to last season” sounds a little rough but we have to be honest with ourselves. In a few years that take may seem more accurate than many of us might admit to right now. That sounds like like a Rags’ fan talking so I’ll shut up now.
The Isles have plenty of talent on this roster so I’m still cautiously optimistic. Trouble is, I’d say the same thing about my NY Jets.
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