Even Lou Lamoriello had to admit that just six months ago, this scenario was almost unfathomable.
But the Islanders president was proud to watch Monday’s 3 p.m. NHL trade deadline come and go without making a move, his first-place team sitting pretty in his first year on the job and the first year for head coach Barry Trotz behind the bench.
“To be perfectly honest and frank, I don’t think anybody standing here could have put on a piece of paper that we’d be standing here at the trade deadline in a position that we are in the league,” Lamoriello said. “The play of the team throughout the year determines what your actions are at this time of the year.”
Trotz has the Islanders playing a very structured game, going from last in the league in goals against per game to first. The jump has been as dramatic as the shift to a culture of extreme professionalism. The result is the club holds a two-point edge on the Capitals atop the Metropolitan Division, while also having two games in hand.
So Lamoriello held on to a handful of players on expiring contracts, most notably Jordan Eberle, Brock Nelson, and captain Anders Lee. All three could have fetched a nice return on the rental market, but now all three will stick with the team through the home stretch and Lamoriello will deal with their respective contract situations this summer.
“It’s our responsibility to try to get our free agents signed, who we feel very good about,” Lamoriello said. “This is certainly an indication of what we think of them and what we think of our own team. But we have a lot of work ahead of us.”
It was an active deadline, including the improvement of teams battling the Islanders for positioning near the top of the Eastern Conference. But Lamoriello said, “I don’t think anything anyone does should impact what you’re doing,” and he decided to stick with what he has.
“We went into this trade deadline with several areas that if potentially we could address, we would,” he said. “But we weren’t going to get into a situation where we sacrificed what our plan is, because we feel very good about this hockey team.”
There was also some comfort in the fact that it seems two regulars, defenseman Thomas Hickey and forward Andrew Ladd, were set to come off injured reserve and rejoin the group for Tuesday night’s Coliseum match against the Flames. It’s a cliche to say a returning player is like a no-cost trade acquisition, but that is how the Islanders feel.
And they’re pretty darn happy with how everything is going, so Lamoriello found no reason to make a move just for the sake of action.
“You always have to think of the future and the present, and we’re in a ‘foundation situation’ of an organization,” Lamoriello said. “We’re trying to get ourselves in a span of winning over a number of years. And I’d like to think that’s the position we’re in right now and that’s what we’re trying to build.”