Why trade a young upcoming Dman named Towes for a winger that has one year left

Absolutely not on that toews trade.. Arizona working on an internal cap so that doesn’t work for them

He’s probably the easiest 25 to 30g scorer that can be acquired and I think there is enough D depth to pull it off. His cap hit isn’t awful either and you can then look to extend or it hopefully buys wahlstrom a year to develop and become the top line winger.

The devils trade is awful for the isles. Not trading our best two way defenseman for a rental who is no better than Jordan eberle

I think he is better than Jordan Eberle. He put up 25g in 65 games last season. I think he’d help the pp immensely and his cap hit is very reasonable. How do you anticipate this team gets a scorer?

He also plays in a more offense minded system. I’m not opposed to acquiring palmieri, but toews is better than him. It doesn’t make the islanders a better team , which should be the goal in any trade. The islanders are better off keeping toews and putting wahlstrom in the ovi spot on the powerplay

Yeah I don’t think playing a guy with 10 games experience is going to solve their scoring problem

Experience doesn’t matter. At some point the isles have to put their prospects in a position to succeed. Wahlstroms shot is the best outside of the NHL. At the very least, you can run the powerplay through him. What do you think a guy like mike Hoffman does? He doesn’t move around on the powerplay. He stays in one spot and waits for someone to set him up.

For the record, wahlstrom was the isles 2nd best generator of offense during his 9 games with the isles. No one other than barzal had more quality scoring chances.

I watch the games just like you do. I hope you’re right it would make everything a lot easier and wahlstrom was completely set up to fail in his 9 games playing 8 min a night with scrubs. It’s just a big bet to make to anticipate he is ready this year.

The fact that he played with scrubs and still carried his line is promising. He was also told by Brent Thompson not to worry about points , to focus more on his defensive play after he was sent down from the isles. He’s definitely ready, you don’t need 5 years to develop in the minors.

I highly doubt the isles will be able to improve externally with the flat cap. That will force this isles regime to not be as conservative and let some of the kids play. They’ll need production from their ELC players

Trotz himself is pretty conservative. Even if wahlstrom cracks the opening day roster (I bet he doesn’t and if bellows is here he will make it before him), are we sure he even sees top 9 and pp ice time?

I don’t even think bellows is with the organization by the time the season starts.

Yes I was talking about trotz. At this point there’s really no excuse for wahlstrom not to make the team. With pageau, the isles now have 4 great centers that are all responsible defensively. The only way they will be able to improve is if they get rid of the learning curve on the younger guys.

Last training camp , Lou said “he is close” regarding wahlstrom. If they don’t give him every opportunity to run with a 3rd line rw role, the islanders do not deserve to make the playoffs. The reason why a lot of our prospects don’t pan out/traded is because the isles don’t put them in a position to succeed

I completely agree with everything you just said. Do you think the top line of Lee Barzal Eberle is enough for Barzal? I’d really like to upgrade one of the wings. (Assuming they start wahlstrom at 3W). I also don’t want to touch that beau Nelson Bailey line.

Eberle is great on barzal rw. He has the iq and puck skills to complement him. I’d swap beau and lee.

Beau-barzal-eberle
Lee-nelson-bailey
Brass-pageau-wahlstrom

Buffalo doesn't want or need Clutterbuck...they already have Okposo.

They are going to want and need to hit that cap floor