Silence.
Since free agency has opened, no team has been quieter than the New York Islanders. General Manager Lou Lamoriello has always had a reputation for secrecy but even this seems extreme for him.
The Islanders have made two moves so far:
Signed cornerstone defenceman Adam Pelech to an incredible team friendly deal even the Lou haters couldn’t help but begrudgingly admit was awesome.
Signed second round draft pick Aatu Räty (who is most likely headed back to Finland so a big deal for future seasons but not in 2021-22).
Apart from that, fans have been left wondering: What is Lou up to other than one of his trade mark long walks.
Here’s what LowAttendance thinks Lou is up to: protecting the Restricted Free Agents (RFAs) from an offer sheet.
We saw a glimpse of this strategy last summer. While the National hockey media either doesn’t care enough about the Islanders to check in or they just have a short memory, Lou has already shown us what he is up to.
Remaining cap compliant in the off-season to protect against offer sheets
2021 off-season
Last off-season, Lou wanted to retain Mat Barzal, Ryan Pulock and Devon Toews, but knew he was short of cap space - the team was vulnerable to an offer sheet.
If an offer sheet came, you assume the Islanders would have signed it, but then further cost cutting would have been needed. Toews was traded to create some room, and while it was a loss the Islanders wanted to avoid, overall the team came out relatively unscathed and kept Barzal and Pulock.
Lou was able to ward off teams by maintaining unofficial cap space.
You may recall that Matt Martin, Andy Greene and Corey Schneider were known to have signed with the Islanders at the start of free agency. The deals for both Greene and Schneider were not announced until January 1. Martin’s deal was announced January 14 a few days after Barzal’s deal. Before then, the players trained with the Islanders on a Professional Try Out.
Martin, Greene and Schneider had signed deals way earlier in the off-season, but until filed with the NHL, the Islanders had a lot more cap room on paper.
If Lou had announced the deals earlier, then the Islanders official cap number would have been much smaller, and a predatory team with cap room might have offered a bloated contract to Barzal, knowing the Islanders were at the mercy of a flat cap.
2021-22 off-season
Lou is doing the same thing this season. Pelech is now signed, but Anthony Beauvillier and Ilya Sorokin are not.
Even with the massive amount of cap space with the departure of Nick Leddy, Andrew Ladd and Jordan Eberle, by the time deals are announced for Casey Cizikas, Kyle Palmieri, Travis Zajac and Zach Parise, the Islanders would be very short of cap space.
But by holding the contracts back, Lou unofficially maintains a lot of cap space, giving him time to negotiate with Beauvillier, Sorokin and some of the other restricted free agents in the Islanders’ organisation.
Lou can now negotiate with the RFA-group in a manner he sees fit, knowing if a team wants to offer a ridiculous offer sheet for one of them, he can match it or collect the assets - importantly, the decision will be on Islanders’ terms, not those of a team trying to bend Lou over a barrel.
Allowing the market to set the rate for RFAs
Waiting also has another advantage: allowing the market rate for players to be set.
It is clear players are now willing to take a discount to stick with the Islanders.
But Lou is also fair. He will pay the market rate. He won’t try to strong arm players like certain teams - Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen has a reputation for this. If you want to hear how a hard negotiating style can harm your organisational reputation, take a listen to the 31 Thoughts Podcast and the interview with Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen.
Let’s say, for example, Lou negotiated really hard with Beauvillier and signed him to a steal of a contract. Fans would rejoice, but would Beauvillier? Even though these athletes live in fantasy land in terms of the money they earn, they are all still human and prone to the same feelings or jealousy or other negative emotions that we all are.
Imagine if Beauvillier signed for say $3M, but it was later reported another team, for example Detroit, would have paid him $6M. We’d like to think Beau would shake it off but would you blame him if he didn’t.
Suddenly, while you have a guy on a good contract, the Islanders are dealing with a potentially disgruntled player, who may play down to the value of his contract.
We also saw two off-seasons ago how other teams can set the market for a player.
You will recall that Montreal tried to offer sheet the other Sebastian Aho. While the move didn’t come off for Montreal, Marc Bergevin essentially did Don Waddell’s job for him by setting the market rate for Aho.
Waiting allows another team to do the same for Beauvillier or Sorokin. But by waiting, it also allows Lou to demonstrate during negotiations that others teams aren’t willing to offer sheet them, and the best deal they will get is with the Islanders.
In the end, Beauvillier and Sorokin will sign, they’ll probably take a small pay cut to keep the band together, and everyone walks away happy.
So when do the UFAs get announced?
In all likelihood, the Islanders may need to wait until the cusp of the season starting.
At time of writing, the Isles have just under $12M in cap space. If you take into consideration Johnny Boychuk’s Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) contract, it works out to about a maximum of $18M. (This assumes no more trades for cap space).
Boychuk’s contract is an important part of the equation here. Due to how the LTIR rules work, Boychuk can only officially be placed on just before the season begins. Before that, the Islanders need to bring their cap hit as high as possible (before going over) to maximise how much LTIR relief they receive.
(Check out CapFriendly’s LTIR explainer if you’re wondering what that all means).
You’ll probably see the Beauvillier and Sorokin deals announced one at a time, as we’ve seen in previous seasons, and then near the end of the off-season, the deals for Palmieri, Cizikas, Zajac and Parise will be announced. Throw Michael Dal Colle and Anatolii Golyshev in there too according to Arthur Staple.
Until then, you might as well go into peak off-season mode and let your ridiculous trade options run wild in your imagination.
The Island is now a desirable destination
Back to fair value contracts and the positive impact it is having for the Islanders around the league. Make no mistake, Lou is sending a message.
The days of free agents shirking the Island are over, at least under Lou’s reign.
All of a sudden, the value proposition for the Islanders trumps other teams. Sure, you could take $1M a season more to play for a bad team, but with the Islanders, you’ll get paid fairly, be on a winning team and live in a great part of the world (for veterans with families this is likely a huge drawing card). All you have to do is buy into Barry Trotz’s defence first system, be a professional and shave every day.
Arthur Staple penned an article last year about the best free agent signings in Islanders history. He made a good point in the article that it wasn’t easy to write, because apart from the early 80s, the team has struggled to attract top players (and when they do, it doesn’t always pan out).
They’re not every Islanders’ fan’s cup of tea, but the guys from Spittin’ Chiclets validate this too. At least while they were in the league, the Islanders was not a desirable destination.
That is changing though. Whether Vladimir Tarasenko ends up with the Islanders or not, the fact the team was named as a preferred destination speaks volumes to the turnaround that Lou and Barry Trotz have overseen with the organisation.
Instead of near misses, suddenly fans are entertaining the idea of how they might fit a 30-goal scorer on an already stacked team. It is a nice problem to have.
Speaking of Tarasenko
On the 31 thoughts podcast, Elliotte Friedman speculated that he thinks Lou has a trade lined up, or is working to line one up, and that is the reason why only Pelech’s deal has been announced.
I tend to think Lou is just being pragmatic, but after the off-season we’ve seen from Lou, would it surprise anyone if he had another big moved planned.
We all know Cizikas, Palmieri, Zajac and Parise are signed. At some point we’ll find out how much.
But it is fun to think that Lou might be looking for one more swing at the fence.
Fans have openly wondered how Tarasenko would fit on the Islanders, which seemingly doesn’t have that many gaps in the line-up.
But trading for Tarasenko would create depth and competition.
The one thing the Islanders have lacked in recent seasons has been depth. Sure, they’ve got 4th liners for days, but scoring forwards is not something they have riches of.
With Tarasenko on board, the Islanders could swap players in and out of the line-up. If a player was injured for the season, no sweat, Oliver Wahlstrom, Zach Parise or Travis Zajac are ready to go. Otherwise they could just spell some of the veteran players for a few games to keep them healthy come playoff time.
The team could conceivably plug a whole new line in at really any point in the line-up with Zajac as centre and any wing combination featuring Parise, Anatolii Golyshev, Oliver Wahlstrom, Richard Panik or elite first-line winger Leo Komarov.
(Whether they can fit Tarasenko under the cap is another question entirely).
Who fills 2 LHD spot?
Having said the above, if a trade is actually coming, you do wonder if a defenseman would make more sense.
The Ryan Pulock-Pelech and Noah Dobson-Greene combos are set, but the 2nd pair alongside Scott Mayfield is interesting.
They could try Thomas Hickey there again. He looked decent in his limited action last season and Hickey-Mayfield was an effective combo a few seasons ago.
But if the Islanders have playoff aspirations again, they are very thin on defence and a trade there may make more sense than a swing for Tarasenko.
It would be asking a lot of Pulock and Pelech to eat the big minutes all season - we’ve seen Trotz likes to shelter Dobson and Andy at this stage of their careers.
And if Trotz likes to shelter first-round pick Dobson, you can only imagine what he’d be like with the real Sebastian Aho, Samuel Bolduc or Robin Salo.
You have to think a signing or trade is coming, perhaps with Panik, Komarov or Hickey going the other way to free up cap space.
Nevertheless, it is fun to dream big and think of another exciting scorer such as Tarasenko. It is the off-season after all.
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