New York Islanders Exploring the Defense Market

Could the New York Islanders Upgrade Their Defense?

Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period was on TSN Radio in Montreal on Monday and was asked if the New York Islanders will be making a move considering the injuries on defense.

NHLRumors.com Transcriptions

Host: “You talk about situational and you mentioned the Islanders very quickly. Lou Lamoriello is obviously not one to sit on his hands and wait for things to happen. And, Mathew Barzal is hurt. Adam Pelech is hurt. Mike Reilly is hurt. Alex Romanov is hurt. When I talk about Pelech, Reilly, and Romanov, is this not kind of similar to the situation in Utah? I mean, Dave, that’s three left-handed shooting defensemen in your sales mix on the back end, like they might have to do something.”

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Dave Pagnotta: “And you know, Samuel Bolduc came in yesterday, and Patrick Roy said that’s enough of that. He played just under six minutes. He threw all the minutes to the other five D. Yes, they have a glaring need on the back yet.

Now, the difference here is that Pelech is out four to six weeks, not four to six months like Durzi and about four months for, for Marino. So a little bit different in that respect, as well as the fact that both Reilly and Romanov are day-to-day. For the time being, they have cap restraints as well. Anthony Duclair is also in the infirmary, but he’s out a couple of a couple of months.

So it’s not like anybody out for the season where they can utilize LTIR space and bring in a body. If they do anything, they can fine-tune here and there. And the word is that Lou Lamoriello is looking to explore as I mentioned earlier, explore what the D market is like. If anything pops up, maybe he’ll pounce. But, they don’t have a ton of cap space. So any significant addition to this group is going to have to result in money leaving to accommodate money coming in.

Again. Can they do some fine-tuning? Yeah, they can get creative, but now they clearly don’t have it internally. If you’re going to make some type of addition, it’s got to be on the back end.

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And quite frankly, guys with the way the Islanders have been going, I mean, yes, Lou’s got the keys, but any big impact type move might be difficult for a guy to make who’s also on an expiring contract at the GM level.”