Although the New York Islanders weren’t quite as busy as many believed at the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline, moving on from longtime forward Brock Nelson but otherwise standing pat, general manager Lou Lamoriello made it clear that many more changes will be coming in the offseason.
“There will be change this summer,” Lamoriello told the media on Saturday, including the New York Post’s Ethan Sears. “Until there’s change, you can’t say how much. But I can assure you there will be change.”
Although the Isles were widely expected to deal Kyle Palmieri ahead of the deadline — both he and Nelson are pending unrestricted free agents — Lamoriello opted to hold onto the veteran after making progress on a contract extension.
The longtime executive continued: “If we could have gotten younger and better, other than draft picks, we would have done it without question. We felt that where a few of our players are — when I say a few, several of our players we could have made moves with — they would be better done at a different time. What we need to infuse in the lineup, those players would be available. That’s a decision we made.
“Along the way we also tried to look at this season. We’re four points out [as of Saturday morning], not to give up in any way whatsoever on the guys in that room, without hurting what the mission was to go into the trade deadline. And it ended up the way it was. But I can assure you that if there were other players, not of the caliber we got but close to that, there would have been a lot more moves.”
There were multiple players on New York’s roster who reportedly drew interest ahead of Friday’s 3 p.m. ET deadline, including captain Anders Lee, center Jean-Gabriel Pageau and defenseman Scott Mayfield.
But none of the veterans ended up getting a change of scenery, and the Islanders will have to try to make up some serious ground in the Eastern Conference with a very similar roster to before the deadline.
Islanders still hanging around in Eastern Conference playoff picture
Despite losing a key piece in Nelson, the Islanders have performed decently well as of late, winning four of their last six games to improve to 29-27-7.
However, they remain third-last in the Metropolitan Division and are a full five points back of the final wildcard berth in the Eastern Conference with just 19 games left.
It will take a herculean effort for the group to get in, and that’s especially true considering Mat Barzal and Semyon Varlamov are each expected to miss the rest of the regular-season.
It doesn’t help that they would have to leapfrog five teams to advance to the dance, which just doesn’t seem likely at this point in time. But as Lamoriello said, New York isn’t out of it just yet.
Every single game will be crucial for the Islanders down the stretch, starting with a road tilt against the Kings in Los Angeles on Tuesday night.
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