The Daily Faceoff Show: Kevin Kurz discusses what’s gone wrong for the New York Islanders
This season hasn’t gone as planned for the New York Islanders.
After reaching the Conference Finals in back-to-back seasons, the Islanders own a 16-17-6 record in 2021-22 and are well out of the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference.
Kevin Kurz, who covers the Islanders for The Athletic, joined Frank Seravalli and Chris Gear on Wednesday’s edition of The Daily Faceoff Show to talk about what’s going wrong for the team and what we can expect as the trade deadline approaches…
Seravalli: “What’s happened here? This is a team that so many picked to win the Metropolitan Division after back-to-back trips to the Eastern Conference Final. They can’t score, and yet they have a core that’s mostly locked in.”
Kurz: “I got here in the middle of December and it was already pretty dire at that point.
In my preparation to start covering this team, I asked as many people as I could what was going on and I got some varying replies. A lot of it was circumstantial, 13 games on the road before opening a new building, one of the first teams to experience a real significant COVID-19 outbreak, and the league really made them play through that.
You can’t overlook the fact that, right now, there are too many nights and stretches during games where the team looks a little old and a little slow. I’m talking about Zdeno Chara on the backend, the fourth line has been up and down, guys like Matt Martin and Cal Clutterbuck. As one source put it to me, he thinks they just got old quickly.
They’ve suffered some significant COVID outbreaks but now they have everybody back. Ryan Pulock is back and he’s a significant piece to that backend, he missed more time than originally expected. But there’s still a number of guys that are going to have to be much better, especially up front. Josh Bailey, Kyle Palmieri, and we’ll if some of the younger guys, Anthony Bauvillier and Oliver Wahlstrom, can take the next steps in their careers.
They’ve got a real compact schedule here over the second half. No NHL team has played fewer games than the Islanders, so the schedule might be their biggest hurdle to try to get back to respectability.”
Gear: “Frank and I were talking before the show about just the number of contracts the Islanders have that are locked in for term. What do they do going forward to try to get themselves out of that? Or is it just a case of the contracts performing better in the future?”
Kurz: “I think they still believe in the core of the group. There’s no realistic scenario in which they blow this up, in my mind.
They have a couple of pieces that maybe they could sell off before the trade deadline to get them mid-to-late-round picks. Maybe a team wants a guy like Zach Parise or Cal Clutterbuck or Andy Greene. It’s not going to be a big return for any of those pending UFAs.
I do think they still believe in the core group but they just need more out of these guys. Kyle Palmieri, one goal in 29 games, Josh Bailey has three goals.
Barry Trotz hinted in his media availability on Tuesday that maybe he’s given some of these guys too much rope just based on what they’ve done in the past. For me, when they resume the schedule on Wednesday night in Vancouver, it’ll be interesting to see if he gives somebody like Oliver Wahlstrom a bigger stake in the team to see if he can thrive in a more prominent role. Anthony Bauviller, same thing. Robin Salo, a former second-round pick, is another one. Do you put him in while scratching someone like Andy Greene or Zdeno Chara?
There are another couple of weeks before the trade deadline talk will really ramp up but I don’t see them blowing things up because they have those pretty long-term, significant contracts that I don’t think they’d be able to move, at least at the moment.
Seravalli: “One guy that doesn’t have major term and also doesn’t have major dollars which makes him attractive is Scott Mayfield, who’s been a big part of the team’s backend over the years. Do you see any opportunity where the Islanders could look to move him? Or will Lou Lamorellio look at the group and decide to run it back again given there have been so many wacky factors this year?”
Kurz: “I can see why Mayfield would be an attractive target. He’s right now playing on the top pairing with Adam Pelech and they’ve been very good, night in and night out. There’s been a little bit of an uptick in his offensive game as well as his defensive game. He’s a guy on a good contract, another year after this one at $1.45 million.
There are other guys in the organization that have progressed. Noah Dobson is maybe the biggest surprise on this team so far in terms of a young player producing and I mentioned Robin Salo earlier as well.
If they wanted to wade into the waters of making a big deal, maybe for Jakob Chychrun or a scoring winger, I think they would look at that. But I also think they really like Mayfield and it would take a really significant return to pry him out of the organization.”