The Islanders have named Ryan Bowness as an assistant general manager and their director of player personnel, the team announced Monday.
Bowness, 41, arrives on Long Island after serving in a similar role for the Senators over the past three seasons. He was an AGM there under Pierre Dorion and Steve Staios, and his principal responsibilities included managing the club’s AHL affiliate in Belleville.
He will not hold the same role under new Isles GM Mathieu Darche, Stefen Rosner of The Hockey News reports. That’s an important distinction. Outgoing GM Lou Lamoriello signed his AGMs, including his son Chris Lamoriello, to contract extensions shortly before the club informed him his contract would not be renewed for next season, according to David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. The younger Lamoriello had served as AHL Bridgeport’s GM since the 2017-18 season, during which time they’ve made the playoffs just twice and finished 2024-25 with a league-worst 15-50-7 record.
There was understandable speculation that Darche might opt to fire Lamoriello anyway, or at least reassign the AHL GM duties to someone else in the front office, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Bowness will instead augment the existing support staff of Lamoriello and Stephen Pellegrini, another longtime Lamoriello assistant, as the team looks for a new direction at the top while adding some much-needed organizational depth to aid in prospect development.
The Nova Scotia native and son of longtime NHL coach Rick Bowness began his front office career in 2009 after just a handful of professional games as a right-winger, although he was an eighth-round pick of the Blue Jackets back in 2001. He started out as a team manager for the Thrashers/Jets franchise from the 2009-10 to 2012-13 campaigns before being promoted to Winnipeg’s pro scouting department. After three more years in Manitoba, Bowness joined the Penguins’ scouting department from 2016-17 to 2021-22. His last three years in Pittsburgh were spent as their director of professional scouting.