A former Islanders and Rangers executive seemed to be less than impressed with the Isles’ offseason moves with the NHL season quickly approaching.
Neil Smith, the general manager who built the 1994 Stanley Cup-winning Rangers and infamously spent only 40 days in the GM’s chair on Long Island before being fired by former Isles’ owner Charles Wang, believes that the Islanders are “stuck in park” after a relatively quiet offseason.
Smith was discussing the Islanders on the “NHL Wraparound Podcast,” which he co-hosts, when he made the comments on the Metropolitan Division preview episode.
“I don’t see this team having improved at all,” Smith said. “I don’t think they’ve moved. I think they’re stuck in park to be honest with you.”
The Islanders are going into their seventh season with Lou Lamoriello as general manager and are coming off a relatively quiet offseason in which their biggest addition was signing free agent forward Anthony Duclair to a four-year, $14 million contract.
Even that addition seemed to raise some questions for Smith.
“Duclair was able to get Lou to give him a four-year deal, which I was stunned at because, as you said at the open of the Islanders segment here, Anthony Duclair is on his ninth team in 11 years,” the former NHL exec said. “Well, you know what, there’s something going on if every time you go to a team they don’t re-sign you, they move you on to the next team. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know the young man, but there’s something going on.”
He wasn’t entirely down on the signing, seeming to take a bit of a wait-and-see attitude about Duclair as Smith continued his thought on the addition.
The former Isles GM acknowledged that Lamoriello has long had a reputation for “being very conservative” during the offseason and still suggested that the Islanders could end up being third in the division again.
“The good news for the Islanders, the division’s not very good,” Smith said.
The Isles finished third in the Metro last year and made it into the playoffs, but were eliminated by the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round.
The Islanders have made the postseason in five of their six seasons with Lamoriello at the helm, but they’ve been eliminated in the first round the last two years and completely missed the playoffs in 2022.
Patrick Roy, who was hired in the middle of last season to replace Lane Lambert as head coach, will have his first full season behind the bench this year.
