Good Morning, Islanders Country.
There wasn’t much drama at the top of Corey Pronman’s 2025 NHL re-draft for The Athletic last month.
Matthew Schaefer went No. 1 overall again. Of course he did.
A year after the Islanders won the lottery and made Schaefer the first pick, he’s already won the Calder Trophy, established himself as the best player from the class, and is already a Top-10 Norris Trophy contender.
That’s great for the Islanders, but it’s also not really news anymore.
What is interesting is what happened with some of their other picks, because we’re getting close to being able to ask a much bigger question.
Could 2025 eventually become the Islanders’ most important draft since 2009?
That’s an incredibly high bar.
The Islanders left the 2009 draft with John Tavares first overall, Calvin de Haan at No. 12, Casey Cizikas at No. 92, and Anders Lee all the way down at No. 152. Every one of those players became an important Islander. Tavares became the face of the franchise and eventually its captain. The defenseman, de Haan, played six seasons on Long Island. Cizikas became one of the defining players of the teams that reached consecutive conference finals. Lee scored 308 goals as an Islander and succeeded Tavares as captain.
One draft produced two Islanders captains and another player in Cizikas, who became synonymous with the franchise's identity. Even after Tavares left, the fingerprints of that 2009 draft remained all over the Islanders for years. It wasn’t simply a good draft. It helped build the next decade-plus of Islanders hockey.
That’s what makes Pronman’s early assessment of 2025 so interesting.
Kashawn Aitcheson was selected No. 17, and Pronman now has him eighth. That’s a pretty massive move in one year. Put him alongside Schaefer, and you can at least start dreaming about two members of the 2025 class eventually playing major roles on the same Islanders blue line.
Then there’s Daniil Prokhorov. The Islanders grabbed the massive Russian winger at No. 42. Pronman now has him going No. 18. That’s basically turning a second-round selection into another first-round talent, at least according to how the class looks today. Tomas Poletin might be even more interesting from a scouting perspective. He went 106th overall. Pronman has him 52nd now.
Victor Eklund was the exception, dropping from No. 16 to No. 27. That’s worth mentioning, but one-year re-drafts are hardly final judgments. Eklund has plenty of development ahead of him and still has the best chance of any prospect to make the team out of training camp.
Still, look at the whole thing.
No. 1 stays No. 1. No. 17 becomes No. 8. No. 42 becomes No. 18. No. 106 becomes No. 52. Nobody should start comparing Aitcheson to Lee or Prokhorov to Cizikas. We don’t even know yet whether some of these guys will become NHL regulars.
But that’s not really the point.
The 2009 draft changed the direction of the Islanders because it didn’t produce one important player. It produced a group that became part of the franchise’s identity for more than a decade. All seven Islanders selections from that draft eventually appeared in the NHL, with Tavares, de Haan, Cizikas and Lee becoming the major organizational hits.
Sixteen years later, the Islanders desperately needed another draft capable of producing more than one answer.
Schaefer is already one.
If Aitcheson, Prokhorov, Eklund, or Poletin become what the Islanders believe they can become, we may eventually look back at 2025 the same way we look back at 2009.
Not as the draft when the Islanders found their next superstar.
As the draft when they found their next team and their next identity.
📺 Up The Turnpike: Why Schaefer Isn't The Islanders Next Captain
🔗 Eiserman intrigued by ‘buzz’ around Islanders ahead of training camp by Tracy Myers, NHL.com “There's a new coach and it seems like there's a lot of buzz around the Islanders, which is pretty cool especially with 'Schaef,' Eklund and Aitcheson, (Malte) Gustafsson, all these young guys," Eiserman said at the NHLPA Rookie Showcase in Chicago in July. "It's cool everyone's coming at the same time-ish, which is important for all of us. We all feel very comfortable and excited, mostly because we're all in it together.”
🔗 The NY Islanders may not be great this season but they will be exciting by Mike Stahurski, Eyes on Isles “Over the past seven seasons, one word many have used to describe NY Islanders hockey is boring. During the Trotz era, the team over-achieved, defending their own zone and nearly made the Stanley Cup Finals. But boring and the Islanders don’t coincide much anymore thanks to Matthew Schaefer.”
And we leave you with this…Matthew Schaefer’s slicked-back look in Vegas.
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