The New York Islanders were less than a minute away on Sunday from gaining a point or two in Chicago. A win would have given them four in the previous five games.
Instead, they flew home Tuesday night having lost two straight and erased whatever progress they’d made during the 3-1-0 run. The 4-0 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, on the heels of the last-minute collapse at the Chicago Blackhawks, leaves the Islanders 12-14-7, their worst record through 33 games since 2013-14.
Lou Lamoriello earned lots of praise when he took the reins of this franchise in May of 2018. Owner Scott Malkin had considered moving on from longtime general manager Garth Snow the summer prior but decided to stick with Snow and coach Doug Weight partly in the hope of convincing John Tavares to stay; the 2017-18 season was a mess and Malkin acted quickly when the season ended, hiring Lamoriello, who’d just been let go as GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs, to take over hockey operations.
Lamoriello scooped up Barry Trotz. Tavares went to Toronto. The Islanders rallied themselves to become one of the hardest-working teams in the league, riding that to consecutive semifinal appearances in the shortened 2020 and 2021 seasons, with Lamoriello winning back-to-back Jim Gregory Awards as GM of the year.
But now, as the Islanders’ familiar roster bumbles its way through a fourth straight mediocre season, the time has come to ask two questions: Are they ready to move on from Lamoriello? And what will it look like if they do?
Is it time?
Beyond so, if you ask die-hard fans. Lamoriello turned 82 in October and while no one is questioning his ability to run a team at his age, there are plenty of legitimate questions about how he’s built this Islander team the past few seasons and why he hasn’t been more proactive in charting a new course.
“When you have time, you use it,” is Lamoriello’s oft-repeated mantra. His patience can certainly be a virtue — Isles fans and NHL watchers need only look a few miles west of UBS Arena to see how quickly a team can fall apart when its management gets impatient. But the Rangers are trying to make changes fast; Lamoriello has been too slow to change course with his own group.
There was the bold trade for Bo Horvat two seasons ago, and Horvat has been a solid top-six player. Lamoriello tried to stave off a December-January slide last season by firing Lane Lambert, whom he’d picked to succeed Trotz in 2021 despite a need for a new voice in the room, and hiring Patrick Roy, the outspoken Hall of Fame goaltender who hadn’t coached in the NHL in nearly a decade.
Both of those moves goosed the team to a whirlwind finish, a late-earned playoff berth and a quick playoff exit. Around those moves were commitments to core players who, either through injury or aging, have become inefficiencies in a tight-cap era. The Islanders have 11 players who signed six-year deals or longer under Lamoriello, who chose longer term to keep cap hits down but has surely found some of those players immoveable due to their contract lengths.
Adam Pelech has missed at least 20 games each of the last three seasons. He’s the sort of player who would fetch a decent haul on the trade market. He’s 30, has an injury history but also a history as a steady, top-four shutdown defenseman. He also has four years left on his deal at a $5.75 million cap hit. That’s hard for contending teams to commit to.
Scott Mayfield was a pending UFA two seasons ago, having also built a sturdy resume as a second/third-pair physical defenseman and penalty killer. As the 2022-23 deadline approached, opposing executives figured Mayfield could have been the top right-handed defenseman on the market. Lamoriello not only kept Mayfield but signed him to a seven-year deal in the summer of 2023. Mayfield played only 41 games last season before going out for the year following ankle surgery.
Pierre Engvall was a 2022-23 deadline acquisition who played well after coming over from the Leafs. He got a similar seven-year deal. The Islanders waived him following this year’s training camp, though injuries brought him back to the roster.
There are more. Casey Cizikas bleeds blue and orange, but his six-year deal for $2.5 million per has two years to go and the 33-year-old is showing his age. Lamoriello has hamstrung any retooling he could have done by locking into role players who usually play at replacement-level production. It’s admirable loyalty to guys who helped put the team back on the map after the dark early 2010s days, but loyalty in a hard-cap system is tough to undo.
Can it happen now?
It’s highly unlikely Malkin could pull the trigger on Lamoriello midseason, even if things get worse on the ice. In hiring Lamoriello six-plus years ago, Malkin ceded total control of hockey operations to Lamoriello. The only assistant GMs there are Chris Lamoriello, Lou’s son, who was hired by Snow as AGM in 2016, and capologist Steve Pellegrini.
So there is no one currently on staff with any managerial experience, unless you count Joanne Holewa, the team’s manager of hockey operations who has been running the hockey ops office since Bill Torrey was in charge.
That means Malkin would have to be working behind the scenes, presumably with outside help from people around the NHL, to find an instant replacement who’s not currently employed by another team. Ken Holland is available. So is Snow, whom Malkin just finished paying not long ago. Holland would be a long, long shot; Snow is just a joke, there’s no way Malkin’s bringing him back, but just to illustrate how slim the immediate options are.
And, while the lower-level hockey ops staff and the scouting/development staffs are primarily holdovers from the previous administration, this is a pivotal stretch for the Islanders leading up to the March 7 trade deadline. Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri are pending UFAs who could bring back some assets. J-G Pageau could be of interest on the trade market.
Malkin may not want Lamoriello handling those decisions if he’s ready to move on, but he may be committed to having Lamoriello see this season through. That requires some hands-on input from the principal owner before the offseason comes.
What can change in the short term?
Lamoriello’s rules — neat hair, no facial hair — for players have been roundly mocked on social media. The behind-the-scenes rules about player engagement and promotion have a far bigger impact. The Isles’ business operations are trying to sell tickets to a mediocre product with minimal input from hockey operations because Lamoriello has long believed in fewer distractions for the players.
Way beyond making players get haircuts every week, that mode of thinking is outdated. Social media has made viral stars of lots of NHL players who can showcase their personalities in lots of ways. It’s not just the twentysomething guys either. Allowing a team with a more modest fan base and sports footprint to actually promote its players and have fun doing so would go a long way toward changing the perception of this team even as it struggles to win games and fill UBS Arena.
If Malkin wants to make changes without removing Lamoriello, that’s a place to start.
If Lamoriello goes, who comes in?
As outlined above, this is not a robust front office and Lamoriello has brought in many of its components even as scouting and development stayed the same as they were under Snow. So whoever Malkin hires has to have serious experience as a manager and/or team president to start sorting through what’s left and determining how to move forward.
There could be some options in the offseason. If the Leafs don’t have real success this spring, Brendan Shanahan could be available. Having him as team president hasn’t turned the Leafs into a perennial contender, but they do get lots of attention, don’t they? And Shanahan has hired some quality GMs.
Jeff Gorton is now president of the Montreal Canadiens after a pretty successful run with the Rangers. If he wants to be a GM again, the Islanders could be a good spot for him. Gorton has decades of experience at all front-office levels.
It’s hard to find experienced front-office people who don’t have baggage or have had the game pass them by. And a move away from Lamoriello, the most experienced GM around, doesn’t mean the Islanders should go the other way and find a first-time GM/president who’s just feeling his way around. Putting this franchise back on the right track is going to be a big task, and you set yourself back years by hiring the wrong person to do it.
What happens to Patrick Roy?
He wanted to be a GM when he was the Avalanche coach, and he’s apparently not been interested in managing since he returned with the Isles, but if Lamoriello goes, Roy might throw his hat in the ring. As said above, this is not the time to turn the reins over to a first-time GM, even one with Roy’s knowledge of the game and confidence in his own ability.
A new GM might also go a different route behind the bench. That might be unfair to Roy, who’s barely had a full season with the Islanders, but this sort of change is bigger than any coach.
Malkin has to get this right. The Islanders could be in for a long stretch of mediocrity if he doesn’t.
(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
