With the contract of general manager Lou Lamoriello believed to be expiring at the end of next month, some had wondered if the time was right to make a change in the front office. However, Newsday’s Andrew Gross reports that after some deliberation, that will not be the case as the team has decided to offer the 80-year-old a three-year contract extension.
Lamoriello has been at the helm in New York for the last five seasons with the team making four playoff appearances during that stretch, highlighted by a trip to the Conference Final in the bubble in 2020. However, they’ve failed to win a playoff series the last two years so with his contract expiring, there was a logical jumping point to make a change if they wanted to.
Despite the lack of postseason success the last couple of seasons, that hasn’t stopped Lamoriello from acting like a win-now GM. Last year at the draft, he moved their first-round pick to Montreal to pick up defenseman Alexander Romanov. Then, back in February, he moved their first-rounder for next month’s draft along with Anthony Beauvillier and prospect Aatu Raty to Vancouver for Bo Horvat before signing the center to a long-term extension. Lamoriello also inked Mathew Barzal to an eight-year, $73.2MM extension that will kick in next season.
At the moment, the Islanders are a veteran-laden team that has been tight to the salary cap for the last few years, a trend that’s likely to continue next season as they have barely $6MM in cap room this summer, per CapFriendly. With that money, they need to sign a backup goalie as Semyon Varlamov is a pending UFA while they’d also likely want to bring wingers Zach Parise and Pierre Engvall back, along with blueliner Scott Mayfield. Those three are also set to hit the open market in July and clearly, the cap room they have is nowhere near enough to re-sign them all.
Accordingly, creating cap space will be at the top of Lamoriello’s to-do list this summer. Josh Bailey and his $5MM price tag is someone the team would likely want to move on from but doing so would require incentivizing a team to do so. However, their prospect pool has taken a hit lately while they only have one pick in the top 110 next month which doesn’t exactly give them a surplus of assets with which to use to try to entice someone to give them that cap room.
Based on Gross’ report, it appears that Lamoriello is going to get a vote of confidence from the team, one that will likely extend to first-year head coach Lane Lambert as well. But the veteran manager is going to have a lot to try to accomplish in terms of re-signing his free agents, creating cap room, and doing so while trying to get a little younger and quicker while trying to restock a dwindling prospect pool at the same time. That’s a tall task for any general manager but the Islanders feel that Lamoriello will be up to the challenge.
Has anyone ever died in the general managers chair?
Huh. No one I can recall, though it may well have happened. Badger Bob Johnson’s the only coach I can recall who had (he was still officially head coach of the Penguins when he died).
Those 30+ year olds aren’t going to sign themselves
I have to imagine the two words most Isles fans are uttering after seeing this headline is “but why?”. :D
@Gbear – Because Garth Snow is still on the side of the milk cartons (“Have you seen me?”) :)
@Mac – Is it just me or when I post a comment recently it keeps popping up as a reply to another post? Maybe my new Droid is too smart for its owner. :(
I’m waiting for Lou to name Poile as his new advisor. Mediocrity 4ever!
@Gbear – I’ve noticed the strange comment behavior too. A couple of times it seemed like either the member didn’t get feedback that the original comment was posted, or it double-posted on its own. And, the old “where did my post go?” phenomenon rears its ugly head, seeming randomly, as well. If it continues, we’ll have to resort to the “Contact Us” option at the bottom of the page.
When you mentioned GMDP, I thought, “What if they go full-on insanity and try to get Darryl there too?” And, on a semi-unrelated note, the geo-blocking on SN570/650/960 has magically cleared up. But, if you want to horn in on the IIHF Worlds’ stream, and you don’t get TSN TV where you live, you might have to resort to VPN access.
@Mac – The 5:30am local start time for the USA vs Hungary game was too much for even me to awake to, lol! (Hungary actually was up 1-0 for awhile).
Sling TV has a half off for a month deal going on. May have to research that one.
Errata! WTF is SN570?? SN590! Man, that’s as bad as Buttgrazer calling TSN 690, “Sportsnet 690 The Fan”. Actually, now that I think about it, SN570 was a Freudian slip (kind of). It’s a Western Digital NVMe SSD, which I’ve been looking to add to the main rig.
@Gbear – I just finished watching SWE vs AUT, with Dennis & Brian on the call. Bypassed IIHF and YT’s geo-blocking, but couldn’t get into the CZE vs LAT game, as it was geo-blocked.
@Mac – Not sure if my low tech technology could get past any kind of geo-force field. :D
@Gbear – Well, my friend, a working PC (>10Mbps interweb speed, too), along with a quick download of VPNBook’s certificate bundles can get you going. Works on Micro$haft, too. BUT, I only use it for bypassing the BS of YouTube, IIHF, and occasionally, Sportsnet. If you need something that can handle that, but is more secure for other transactions as well, you’d have to fork over a few rubles for something like NordVPN, Linode, or ProtonVPN, for instance.
Slight Errata – It turns out that the game was not CZE vs LAT, but CZE vs KAZ. Either way, it was blocked. CZE vs LAT just finished and it was a wild one.
@Mac – USA with a some 3rd period magic to beat Germany today. Our 1st periods need improvement.
@Gbear – You’ll have to write louder – those folks in Latvia are nuts! Johnny & Gord said some of them will be late to work tomorrow morning. But, it should be quiet in the workplace. :) I think I’ll have to put Marek on hold for later in the day, so I can watch an earlier game live.
Islander fans should blame Lou for their quick departure. He just needs a few more 35 year old forwards…or maybe he can pay the league (again) to STEAL another Scott Stevens.