Let the (real) games begin! Andrew Gross of Newsday joins Sean & Stefen to break down what they saw in Isles camp and preseason and look ahead to the official drop of the puck on the New York Islanders 2024-25 campaign!
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Good Morning, Islanders Country.
Lou Lamoriello believes that if you have time, you should use it. On Sunday, he made a move that is best for the roster right now and may bide himself and the organization additional time on a player they have invested in.
For days, Pierre Engvall seemed like the odd man out, and the 28-year-old was ultimately placed on waivers with seven others on Sunday. The move allows the Islanders to bury a portion of his annual $3M AAV salary in Bridgeport if he clears waivers and creates enough cap flexibility to keep former first-round pick Oliver Wahlstrom on the roster as a fourth-liner and be cap compliant.
Things may change, but the decision to waive Engvall with six years puts into question where he fits on this roster moving forward. Speaking to the media, Lamoriello indicated that it was more about other players than it was about Engvall, but that’s still an indictment of a player with a long-term commitment.
"I think that what happened, simplistically, is that he's a top six, top nine forward, and Maxim Tsyplakov earned his way into that role, and basically, we have to make the best decisions for the best lineup we can put together," Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello said on Sunday morning in The Hockey News. "It's as simple as that. It's not that he did anything wrong, but he basically lost the job at this point. He is not a bottom-six player.”
Engvall started last season on the second line with Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri after the line finished the 2022-23 season extraordinarily strong. The chemistry and potential Engvall showed on that line likely contributed to him receiving a seven-year contract extension on Jul 1st. However, nothing else indicated that Engavll was a top-six player throughout his career, and his cap hit had him in the range of a third-liner with upside.
Now, it seems the Islanders are looking for a different style of play from their bottom six, and others are a better fit than Engvall. Whether or not the Islanders can find a trade partner, given his contract, is to be seen. Today, we find out if any teams see the same upside in Engvall as the Isles’ saw and whether it’s enough for one of them to claim him.
Coming up, the first final roster comes into focus, and practice is opened for fans at UBS Arena. Plus, Max is a total stud, Sorokin is almost good to go, and the Isles played their first game 52 years ago.
Let’s dive in.
📰 NEWS: In addition to Pierre Engvall, seven other players were placed on waivers, as teams must be cap-compliant by 5 p.m. Also on waivers were forwards Hudson Fasching, Liam Foudy, and Frederik Karlstrom. Defensemen Samuel Bolduc and Grant Hutton were also waived. The pair had been battling for the seventh defenseman job with Dennis Cholowski, and goaltenders Marcus Hogberg and Jakub Skarek were also waived. It would be a mild surprise if another team claimed any of the seven, though you can see Bolduc as a possibility for teams.
Julien Gauthier looks to have made the team, and as for Matt Martin, he remains on his PTO and will continue to skate with the team into the start of the season. "He will not be signed at this point right away,” said Lamoriello. “It will be a situation where he will continue to practice, and we'll make whatever decisions have to be made at the appropriate time."
Open Practice
The Islanders opened their practice to season ticket holders at UBS Arena on Sunday. While it created a different atmosphere, it was business as usual for Patrick Roy and the players as they prepared for the season opener on Thursday.
"That was just nice to bring some energy into the building for practice," Mathew Barzal said. "It's cool to kind of give them an inside look on what we do every day. They probably appreciate how hard we work out there, day in, day out, so it was fun having them out here and trying to put on a good practice.”
Patrick Roy addressed the fans in a nice moment, emphasizing how important the connection between fans and players and saying that the Isles have a special group working hard to succeed this season.
Down to the Studs
The Isles signed Maxim Tsyplakov to contribute this season. The early signs are that he has the potential to do a lot more than that.
Translating KHL success to the NHL has historically been a mixed bag, but Tysplakov could be an exception if his preseason performance is any indication. With his willingness to work and learn, he's turned the coaching staff into early believers, and his new teammates have also noticed that there’s a lot of talent.
“You’ve seen some of the Russian players come over and some pan out, some don’t, said Mathew Barzal after Friday night's preseason win. "He's come in and within literally 30 seconds of watching him I could tell he was going to be good. And within a period of our first intrasquad game I think we knew pretty quick he was going to be a stud. He’s a great player."
The addition of Anthony Duclair has the Islanders' top line poised to be more dangerous than it's been in recent memory. If Tsyplakov can become a 20+ goal scorer on the second line and contribute a net-front presence on the powerplay, the Islanders have a chance of being better than average in goal scoring this season and for the foreseeable future.
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders have three days to prepare for the regular season opener at UBS Arena on Thursday night versus the Utah Hockey Club.
📊 STANDINGS: The New Jersey Devils swept their two-game series against the Buffalo Sabres to sit atop the Metro Division standings with four points.
Ready or Not?
Ilya Sorokin participated in the open practice on Sunday, and if you didn’t know he had back surgery, you’d expect him to be the starter on opening night. However, as we know, Sorokin has not seen any game action since off-season back surgery, making it more likely that Semyon Varlamov will get the nod on Thursday night versus Utah.
Nevertheless, the Islanders’ brass are satisfied with Sorokin’s progress and believe he’ll be ready soon. "When he's ready, he's ready," Lamoriello said. "I think that the [recovery] process has been exactly what we hoped it would be. And if you want to say we extended it a period of time, we did what had to be done to make sure he was totally 100 percent."
📚 SOUND SMART: Pierre Engvall has scored a goal in 57 games throughout his NHL career, but none have been multi-goal games. Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, that’s the fourth most career single-goal games before a multi-goal game amongst forwards in NHL history.
🎥 ISLES REWIND: On Oct. 7, 1972, the New York Islanders named Ed Westfall their first captain, and the franchise played in their first game, losing 3-2 to another expansion team, Atlanta Flames, in front of a crowd of 12,221 at Nassau Coliseum. Westfall scored the team’s first goal at 17:29 of the second period.
“Reasoning that it wouldn't be too good an idea to have both expansion teams rubbed out on the same night of activity, the NHL schedule-maker pitted the newcomers against each other,” wrote Barry Wilner of The Associated Press. “The NHL figured there'd be plenty of losing for them the rest of the way.”
You can read Stan Fischler’s recounting of the first game in Islanders history in his Maven’s Memories article from 2019.
🎧 Islanders Anxiety - You’re Not Coming to Six Flags “Mike and Dan discuss the waiving of Pierre Engvall (and others) ahead of the Islanders' season opener this week against the Utah Sister Wives. Putting Engvall and the six years left on his contract on waivers was a bold move by Lou Lamoriello but it illustrates just how the team has changed and how Engvall's signature brand of ineffectiveness can't be tolerated any more”
🔗 Islanders’ Maxim Tsyplakov turning heads: ‘We knew pretty quick he was going to be a stud’ by Arthur Staple, The Athletic “The 26-year-old Tsyplakov had a number of suitors this summer when he decided to come to the NHL after seven seasons with Spartak Moscow, only the last of which did he display the sort of skill level and production players need to get noticed over here. He chose the Islanders in part because he had a chance to earn a spot higher in the lineup than he might on a deeper offensive team, and the Islanders have made him earn it ahead of the season.”
🔗 Sorokin will be ready for Islanders season opener, GM says by Stefen Rosner, NHL.com "We'll see how it goes tomorrow after today, and then the next day and the next day," Islanders coach Patrick Roy said of Sorokin. "We'll make our decisions based on that."
And we leave you with this…skating after practice isn’t easy or fun for anyone, especially for goalies. The blue team, including Semyon Varlamov, had to labor through skating after losing the shootout competition to the white team.
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