Daily Faceoff Live: New York Islanders mid-season slip

Daily Faceoff President Frank Seravalli and former NHL goaltender now analyst Mike McKenna take a look at the New York Islanders mid-season slide and what it entails for General Manager Lou Lamoriello and the Isles organization.

Frank Seravalli: Let’s talk about the New York Islanders and their grip on a playoff spot which has been fleeting at times this season; they’ve been in one, out of one for a while and now they really seem to be going the other direction. When you look at the Islanders and where they stand, a team who didn’t really make many off-season changes and essentially decided to bring back the group that got to back-to-back Eastern Conference Finals and a group that has probably a little long in the tooth when you look at some of the players they have. When you look at this group as we get closer to the deadline what kind of posture would you take if you were Lou Lamoriello? In my projections and objectives for the top Eastern Conference teams, I put the Islanders in their own category of only God and Lou know because he keeps things so close to the vest. But, when you look at this team; they’re 24th in the league for points percentage in the last month, should they be a buyer or a seller and try to reboot? 

Mike McKenna: Well I don’t see them selling, that’s not Lou. But the bottom line is this team has too many middle-line bloated contracts of players who are living up to it; you got Matt Barzal making $7 million, and Brock Nelson making $6 million. But, you got Josh Bailey, Anders Lee, Anthony Beauvillier, and Jean-Gabriel Pageau and you can see the contacts eating up a ton of cap space. So how do you move those players out if they’re not performing up to standards? That’s the hard part for Lou. They will have some cap space and they could make moves if they’d like to, but where’s the star power? There’s not one single player on that team with 15+ goals. There are 61 players who have scored 16 or more times this season, and that needs to be fixed. Also, they’re wasting Ilya Sorokin’s performances in net. This guy has allowed one goal in five of his last 11 starts. That’s what it takes for the Islanders to win; since Dec. 1st they’re 28th in the league for goals for and tenth in that timeframe with goals against at 2.76 they are wasting these performances by Sorokin and need to find some offensive star. 

Frank Seravalli: That’s why I think they should be sellers. They have a season from Sorokin who I have picked as one of 17 franchise players in the NHL. He’s so good and so consistent that to have someone like him backing up your team; you get into the playoffs you’ll have a shot. I think the easiest thing to do is to make the move in net, put it all on Sorokin and move out Semyon Varlamov and that $5 million cap hit and move it somewhere else. Use those funds and try to make the team better, get someone who can play with Barzal and put all those pucks into the net that he keeps putting on his teammate’s sticks.  

You can watch the full episode here…