Remember When

The past doesn't predict the future

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Good Morning, Islanders Country.

There’s an episode in The Sopranos where Tony gets increasingly agitated at Paulie Walnuts telling stories from the past at dinner and says, “Remember when is the lowest form of conversation” before walking away from the table.

Well, yesterday was a Remember When type of day for me. First, I spent part of the afternoon taking a holiday stroll down memory lane with Chris Botta and Andy Francess to discuss the 2003 Santa “Brawl” at the Coliseum. It’s a really fun listen, and by the end of the night, social media magic identified who the “little Santa” was throwing small haymakers at the Ranger fans. Fun stuff.

Later, I had my annual holiday dinner with friends in the city, where the glory days of high school athletics, college shenanigans, and group vacations are always on the menu conversation. So, what does this have to do with the Islanders?

It dawned on me that the Islanders are too much of a ‘remember when’ organization right now. I’m not even talking about the remember when of the dynasty years or the 1993 team and the memories of the Nassau Coliseum. 'I’m talking about as it pertains to this current group.

Almost any hope and/or optimism you have about this roster, and that’s hard to come by right now, is because of the ‘remember when’ factor. It’s attributable to the Hall-of-Fame executive GM, the all-time great goaltender that’s the coach, and a core group of players with an increasingly distant track record of being a team built for the postseason and capable of deep playoff runs.

If the only reason to be optimistic about a team is what’s happened in the past rather than what is possible, it’s probably time to start changing the conversation.

Remembering when Pelech/Pulock was a shutdown pair, Ilya Sorokin was a Vezina Finalist, and Lou Lamoriello built Stanley Cup champions hasn’t been enough to make the future feel any brighter. The Islanders need to give us reason to believe there will be something new to reminisce about one day instead of discussing what was and a predictor of what will be again.

Let’s dive in.

📰 NEWS: New York Islanders defenseman Grant Hutton cleared waivers on Thursday and will be sent to Bridgeport. Pierre Engvall, who doesn’t need to go back on waivers to be reassigned, remains with the team as goaltender Semyon Varlamov was shifted to LTIR, making the Islanders roster cap-compliant.

The moves come ahead of the anticipated activation of Anthony Duclair for Saturday’s game in Toronto. Per Puckpedia, following the moves, the Isles now have $3.631M cap space with over $6M in their LTIR pool. Varlamov will be eligible to come off after the Dec. 28 match against the Sabres, which would clear the 10-game, 24-day hurdle mandatory for LTIR stints.

Mistakes Were Made

Head Coach Patrick Roy admitted after practice on Thursday that the team “should have maybe spent more time on the PK and power play in training camp.” Stefen Rosner of The Hockey News captured the full quote below. While I suppose it’s good that Roy is willing to shoulder some of the blame for the historically bad special teams,

⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders are in Toronto on Saturday night to take on the Maple Leafs. Face-off is scheduled for 7:00 PM EST.

📊 STANDINGS:

U-S-A, U-S-A!

As expected, on Thursday, Islanders’ prospects Danny Nelson (Notre Dame) and Cole Eiserman (Boston University) were officially named to the 2025 US World Juniors team. Eiserman, drafted 20th overall at the 2023 NHL Draft, came in at 13th in The Athletic’s Top 25 NHL Prospects at the World Juniors rankings.

Eiserman is the NTDP’s all-time leading goal scorer and one of the most prolific pure shooters in this year’s tournament. Ryan Leonard and Gabe Perreault will be Team USA’s top two wingers but Eiserman should do some damage in the middle six and on the power play. He’s a one-shot game-breaker.

📚 SOUND SMART: For the New York Post, Ethan Sears sought help from the Elias Sports Bureau to devise a methodology that combined the success rate of power plays and penalty kills to determine whether the Islanders had one of the worst special teams in history. The answer was a resounding yes. Based on the data, which goes back to 1987-88, the combined success rate is 0.348, well ahead of the 2020-21 Devils and 1999-2000, two teams that finished well under .500.

🎥 ISLES REWIND: On Dec. 20, 1985, Denis Potvin became the NHL’s all-time leading scorer among defensemen during the Isles’ 2-2 tie with the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. His assist in the first period on Mike Bossy’s goal gave him 916 points, putting him ahead of Orr. He retired with 1,052 points, which is still the seventh-most among blueliners.

🔗 The historic numbers behind the Islanders’ failures on special teams by Ethan Sears, New York Post “Not only are they the worst in the league in 2024-25, but by at least one metric, they’re on pace to be the worst in recorded history. There’s no officially sanctioned way to measure special-teams success as one statistic, so The Post attempted to come up with one, attempting to figure out how the Islanders compare historically.”

🔗 Islanders Barzal Back — Willing To Do Everything It Takes To Win by Stefen Rosner, The Hockey News “Back in the lineup after dealing with a long-term upper-body injury, New York Islanders forward Mathew Barzal will do whatever it takes to help his team win hockey games. "I was open to playing wing. I was open to coming back to center," Barzal told The Hockey News following Thursday's practice. "I'm open to playing on the penalty kill."

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And we leave you with this…players paid visits to local hospitals on Thursday, delivering gifts to pediatric patients before the holidays.

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