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Mathew Barzal

East Notes: Barzal, Cizikas, Olofsson, Peterka

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With the opening of training camp, New York Islander players have undergone off-ice testing today. However, one notable missing player today is unsigned restricted free agent Mathew Barzal, who now is considered to officially be a holdout, according to The Athletic’s Arthur Staple.

Head coach Barry Trotz confirmed that Barzal is not in camp, although he said Barzal is on Long Island. He said he will make due without Barzal for now. The team currently only has $3.9MM in cap room, but once the team is able to put defenseman Johnny Boychuk on LTIR due to a career-ending eye injury, that should open up some extra cap space to sign the first-line center.

“You have to make sure you’re adaptable,” Trotz said. “We’re going to worry about who we can put on the ice.”

  • Sticking with the Islanders, Staple reports that forward Casey Cizikas is in camp and ready to go. The 29-year-old forward was forced to leave the bubble during the playoffs after suffering an eye injury. Cizikas told Staple that he took a hit to the head during the playoffs and the vision in his left eye went blurry. After leaving the bubble, the key fourth-line forward was diagnosed with a detached retina. “I feel comfortable and confident on the ice now, so that’s the most important thing,” said Cizikas.
  • When Taylor Hall signed a one-year deal with the Buffalo Sabres, the former Hart Trophy winner was penciled in next two Jack Eichel and winger Victor Olofsson. Unfortunately, the first few days of camp haven’t given him much playing time with those linemates as Eichel has been out with an upper-body injury and has been day-to-day with the start of camp. Now, Olofsson is also listed as day-to-day. The forward left practice Saturday after crashing hard into the goal post while doing a one-on-one drill with Rasmus Dahlin at full speed, according to The Athletic’s Jon Vogl. He was favoring his left arm. However, head coach Ralph Kruger said Sunday that he expects Eichel, Olofsson and goaltender Linus Ullmark to return by Wednesday, according to the Buffalo News’ Lance Lysowski, although that likely means they will miss Monday’s scrimmage.
  • Despite an impressive showing for Team Germany at the World Juniors last week, Buffalo Sabres prospect John-Jason Peterka will not be attending Buffalo’s training camp. The 18-year-old is expected to return to Germany and play for EHC Munchen in the DEL where he has been playing since last season. The team’s second-round pick (34th overall) scored seven goals amongst men in 42 games there last season and should take a much bigger role with his team this year. Vogl adds that Krueger knows Peterka’s coach in the DEL and believes he will develop him well.

Islanders Expected To Pursue Bridge Contract For Mathew Barzal

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One of the more interesting RFA cases is Islanders center Mathew Barzal.  He has been their leading scorer in each of his first three NHL seasons and GM Lou Lamoriello has publicly stated any offer sheet would be matched in an effort to dissuade other teams from even attempting to go that route.  However, cap space is still a big factor, even after trading blueliner Devon Toews to Colorado and the recent announcement that Johnny Boychuk’s playing career has come to an end (making him eligible for LTIR).

Accordingly, Newsday’s Andrew Gross notes that the industry expectation for Barzal is that he will sign a bridge deal, a two-year or three-year pact around $7MM per season.  That would still represent a substantial raise from the $925K base pay he earned on his entry-level deal (which included his signing bonus) and give both sides a chance to re-assess the financial landscape before he reaches UFA eligibility.  On top of that, it also gives New York a chance to determine if the 23-year-old is capable of getting back to his rookie-season output of 85 points or if he’s likely to check in below that as he did in the past two years where he had 62 and 60 points.

If that is indeed the route they go, there are two big questions to be answered.  The first is the structure of the deal in terms of how much to backload it, particularly with the new qualifying offer rules in place.  Now, the required tender is the lower of 120% of the AAV or whatever the salary on the final season winds up being.  Even if the AAV of this deal winds up near that $7MM target, it’s quite likely that the qualifying offer will be in the $8MM range.

The other is how to fit this in on the cap.  Yes, Boychuk is going to wind up on LTIR but there is a timing factor at stake.  If the Islanders can wait to put him there until the start of the season, they’ll have some more in-season flexibility to work with.

As things stand, they have roughly $3.9MM in cap room, per CapFriendly and that’s with a minimum-sized roster.  If they want to get this deal done and be in cap and roster compliance before placing Boychuk on LTIR, there is going to have to be some roster juggling.  Some high-priced veterans (such as Andrew Ladd, Thomas Hickey, and Leo Komarov) could be waived in camp and sent down, freeing up $1.075MM each in cap space before having to offset that amount by a minimum-salaried recall.  Expected goalie Ilya Sorokin (who is waiver exempt) could also go down and be temporarily replaced by a lower-salaried netminder on their season-opening roster before those transactions were reversed.  Even more of those moves may be required to pull that particular strategy off.

Assuming they can do so, they could utilize almost all of Boychuk’s contract in LTIR room (the cap room freed up is the amount of the contract minus existing cap space at the time of placement, not automatically the full value of the contract) and it appears that they’ve already done some of that spending.  Gross adds that deals are believed to be in place for goalie Cory Schneider (which had been reported back in October), defenseman Andy Greene, and winger Matt Martin.  That money can’t be committed until they get Barzal signed and Boychuk transferred with the latter move happening right at the beginning of the season.  As a result, it’s probable that those veterans will be in camp on PTO deals only.

Bridge contracts are often viewed as the simple solution but in Barzal’s case, there will be a lot of moving parts to this one with several veterans being affected by what he eventually signs for and when the deal is done.

Islanders Are Facing A Cap Crunch

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On the surface, having nearly $4MM in cap space to work with (per CapFriendly) would seem like a good thing for the Islanders.  Many teams don’t have anywhere near that type of room and would love to have that situation.  Of course, it isn’t quite that simple as New York still has their top forward in Mathew Barzal to re-sign and it’s doubtful that he’d simply settle for whatever room they have left.

While the 23-year-old technically had the lowest point total of his career last season, he still managed 19 goals and 41 assists in 68 games and is their number one center.  Even without the realistic threat of an offer sheet (given how few teams have the cap space available to try to sign Barzal at a price point that wouldn’t be matched), he still certainly has enough leverage to secure a sizable contract.

The recent settlement with defenseman Ryan Pulock opened up a second buyout window but given that most of their higher-priced talent that have underachieved have come with virtual buyout-proof deals based on how the contracts were structured, that was never really an option to use.  Those struggles in performance also makes finding a taker for defenseman Johnny Boychuk ($6MM) or winger Andrew Ladd ($5.5MM) extremely difficult.

Even players whose cap hits were under the second buyout threshold in wingers Cal Clutterbuck ($3.5MM) and Leo Komarov ($3MM) will be difficult as teams that are looking for grit can sign a free agent for much less than they’re making.  One of those is Matt Martin, a player they’d like to bring back but they need to get Barzal signed first.  Meanwhile, most of the more expensive veterans that would have some trade value are the ones that GM Lou Lamoriello will want to keep around although blueliner Nick Leddy ($5.5MM) could be deemed expendable.

One possible way to mitigate the situation is to focus on a short-term deal with Barzal.  A one-year pact would put his cap hit lower than it would on a multi-year contract and while it does take him to salary arbitration eligibility, anything under three years would do that anyway.  (Four years or more would take him to UFA status.)  While that typically isn’t an ideal option for a top young player, this isn’t a typical situation given that a lot of contracts for notable players have come in lower than expected.  As far as looking to cash in with a long-term, big-money contract goes, this probably isn’t the right time to do so.

But even that won’t solve the problem completely as again, Barzal is likely to get more than what New York has left in cap space so some sort of move has to be made.  They can open up a bit more wiggle room by carrying a minimum-sized roster but even if that leaves enough to get him in on a one-year pact, it leaves them quite vulnerable in terms of not having much room for recalls which, in a season that’s expected to be somewhat compressed with plenty of back-to-back situations, is hardly ideal.

Accordingly, it appears as if the Islanders will be joining the list of teams that are looking to free up some cap room between now and the start of the 2020-21 campaign, whenever it may be.  Of course, that’s something that’s a lot easier said than done this offseason.

Snapshots: Barzal, Timashov, Davidsson

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The New York Islanders locked up one of their key restricted free agents today when they agreed on a new two-year contract with Ryan Pulock, but still have one big item on their offseason to-do list. That’s a new contract for Mathew Barzal, who is a restricted free agent without arbitration rights and is in line for a huge raise.

Perhaps not as big as one might expect though. Pulock, speaking to reporters today including Andrew Gross of Newsday, explained that he and Barzal have spoken throughout the offseason and are trying to take deals that work for them and the Islanders, in the hopes that their current core can stay together. Still, it’s not like Pulock took a huge discount on his deal, which walks him straight to free agency at age-27 and carries a $5MM AAV. Barzal, who led the Islanders with 60 points during the regular season, is arguably the most important skater on the team and should command quite the salary.

New York Islanders Announce Qualifying Offers

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The New York Islanders have tendered qualifying offers to several players ahead of the upcoming free agent period. Mathew Barzal, Kyle Burroughs, Joshua Ho-Sang, Grant Hutton, Ryan Pulock, Devon Toews, Mitch Vande Sompel, and Parker Wotherspoon have all received qualifying offers. After re-signing Sebastian Aho to a two-year deal, that leaves just Linus Soderstrom unqualified. Soderstrom will become an unrestricted free agent on Friday.

While Soderstrom’s exclusion may raise some eyebrows, the most surprising decision here may be to qualify Ho-Sang. The Islanders and their enigmatic prospect have never really seen eye-to-eye and it appeared as though the two sides were going to finally have a chance to part ways. Instead, Arthur Staple of The Athletic reported last week that New York actually would be qualifying the 24-year-old, keeping him in the organization that drafted him six years ago.

It’s not just that Ho-Sang hasn’t made an impact at the NHL level, it’s that he has constantly clashed with the Islanders coaching staff and management teams on his career path. The first-round pick has believed he deserved more time in the NHL to show what he could do and this year even officially requested a trade and was told not to report to the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Ho-Sang ended up playing six games for the San Antonio Rampage, the AHL affiliate of the St. Louis Blues before the season was canceled.

Obviously, it is difficult to see a path forward between the two sides, but that doesn’t mean Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello is going to throw away an asset (regardless of value).

Islanders Notes: Injuries, RFAs, Barzal

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New York Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello spoke to the media today, giving his thoughts on several topics. As Andrew Gross of Newsday tweets, that included an update on several injured players. Casey Cizikas, Adam Pelech, and Tom Kuhnhackl have all undergone successful surgeries and are expected to be ready for the start of the 2020-21 training camp (whenever that takes place).

While Cizikas and Pelech are heading into the last year of their respective contracts, Kuhnhackl will actually become an unrestricted free agent next month. The 28-year-old forward suited up in three postseason games for the Islanders and could potentially be brought back as a depth option next season.

  • While Kuhnhackl is one of several unrestricted free agent decisions the team has, there are even more to be made on restricted free agents. While players like Mathew Barzal and Ryan Pulock are obviously going to get qualifying offers, that may not be the case for some of the Islanders minor league players. In fact, Lamoriello expects that there will be one or two RFAs not qualified. That may be the case in many organizations around the league as teams navigate their new financial situations.
  • For Barzal though, Lamoriello isn’t worried about the upcoming negotiation. When asked about the danger of an offer sheet, Lamoriello told Gross that he is confident the team will get their players signed. The 23-year-old center is coming off another excellent season and showed he could be a postseason performer as well with 17 points in 22 games.

Islanders Notes: Salary Cap, Free Agents, Ilya Sorokin

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Many teams are facing troubling cap situations over the next two seasons (assuming the CBA passes and the cap freezes at $81.5MM). Count the New York Islanders among the troubled.

Though they don’t have any exorbitant deals, the Islanders have a whole host of contracts in the $3-6MM range. With $71.38MM already committed to their roster for next season, there’s a decent likelihood that GM Lou Lamoriello will have to let all their pending unrestricted free agents walk, per The Athletic’s Arthur Staple. That would mean Matt Martin, Derick Brassard, Tom Kuhnhackl, Andy Greene, and Thomas Greiss all hitting the open market. Then again, with many teams facing this crunch, free agents may face a depressed market, potentially allowing teams to grab some bargain short-term deals.

  • Greiss is probably the biggest on-ice contributor from that group, though if all goes well, Ilya Sorokin could join the club and take on that role. Martin might be the bigger loss in a spiritual sense. Despite a two-year hiatus in Toronto, Martin has spent nine years in New York, and his grinding style of play has made him popular among the locals. He’s also the most likely to return, as the fourth-liner may not command a whole lot in free agency after marking 0.4 point shares this season.
  • The bigger issue, Staples writes, is with the Islanders restricted free agents: namely, Mathew Barzal. Just two years removed from winning the Calder Trophy, Barzal is in line for a hefty raise, even if he settles for a bridge contract. With Ryan Pulock, Devon Toews, and potentially Sorokin (more on this later) also restricted free agents, the Islanders will look to shed a contract or two to free up enough money to keep these central young players in the fold. The team has been resistant to trading Nick Leddy, but his $5.5MM could be rerouted to players more likely to play key roles moving forward. Leddy remains a viable blueliner, and though they’re not likely to return a significant asset for him, New York can get out from under his contract if they need the money. Another former Blackhawk, Andrew Ladd, would be another trade piece, but at 35-years-old and with only 30 games played over the last two seasons, they’re not likely to find a taker for the veteran forward – nor can they get any savings from buying him out. More likely for Ladd, Staples notes, is landing on the long-term injured reserve, which would allow the Islanders to go over the cap by $5.5MM.
  • Even though signing Sorokin now will burn his one year ELC, the Islanders are probably going to do so anyway to get him in the fold, writes Staple in another piece. It will make him a restricted free agent for next season, but the Islanders appear ready to bring him in to start working with their coaches. Since the KHL doesn’t typically allow opt-outs, New York would rather bring him in and have him ready for next season rather than lose him to the KHL for another season.

No Extension Talks Between Islanders And Mathew Barzal

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Some teams have been taking advantage of this pause in the schedule to talk about new contracts for their pending free agents.  The Islanders aren’t doing that with their top pending restricted in Mathew Barzal.  The center told reporters, including NHL.com’s Brian Compton, that there hasn’t been any talks about a new deal yet:

To be honest with you guys, I don’t think there’s been too much communication, and not because there’s anything negative or anything, it’s just Lou’s getting ready for a playoff run right now, and I’m still worried about this season as well.  I’m not too too worried about it, just because I don’t think the season is over yet. I think we’re still going to be playing.

There’s bigger things we’ve got to worry about right now in terms of heading to the playoffs this year. But at the same time, whenever we’re ready to sit down and get it done, I’d love for that to happen. At the same time, I’m not a person that’s just going to rush this thing or get nervous about it or whatever. I’m just going about my day, and it’ll happen when it happens.

While the 22-year-old hasn’t been able to get back to the numbers of his rookie season that saw him pick up 85 points in 82 games to earn him the Calder Trophy, he did reach the 60-point mark before the games stopped, the third straight year he has hit that mark.  He’s also their leading scorer for the third straight year which is quite impressive for someone that’s in his third full NHL season.

It’s that production that has made him one of the top restricted free agents this summer as he’s in line to get a substantial raise on his current $925K salary regardless of what happens with the salary cap as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.  While Barzal didn’t touch on that in his comments, it’s likely that the potential for a lowered or flattened Upper Limit of the cap is playing a role in the lack of discussions right now.

Barzal has been a speculative candidate for an offer sheet all season long but GM Lou Lamoriello tried his best to pour cold water on that last month when he stated that he would match anything that his top forward could sign but until a new deal is agreed on, that will still linger.  In the meantime, it appears the focus is on the resumption of the season if and when that time comes.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Islanders Notes: Sorokin, Barzal, Injuries, Belmont Arena

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While there has been positive more than a month ago, many New York Islanders fans have been excited about the team potentially signing top goalie prospect Ilya Sorokin out of the KHL this offseason. However, with the worldwide issues of COVID-19 and little information since, NHL.com released an interview with general manager Lou Lamoriello in which the GM reiterates that the team expects Sorokin to sign a contract for next season.

The 24-year-old goaltender has dominated the KHL the last few years and is considered the best goaltender outside the NHL. He finished the 2019-20 season with a 1.50 GAA and a .935 save percentage in 40 appearances for CSKA Moscow. In the currently suspended playoffs, Sorokin has won all four of his matchups, allowing just three goals so far, with a 0.73 GAA and a .966 save percentage. Sorokin’s contract expires on April 30th, although with the coronavirus suspending play, that date could be pushed back if the KHL intends to continue their playoffs at some point.

  • Another issue that Lamoriello settled is the future contract of young star Mathew Barzal. The 22-year-old will be hitting restricted free agency this summer and the Islanders have made it clear that they intend to lock him up to a long-term deal, there are plenty of concerns that teams may attempt to raid the Islanders’ team by attempting to sign the young centerman to an offer sheet. However, Lamoriello made it clear in that interview, that the team intends to lock him up before free agency arrives and will match any offer sheet. “It is our intention to not allow it to get to that point, but should that happen, the answer is yes,” said Lamoriello. While Barzal’s numbers haven’t been close to what it was in his rookie campaign when he tallied 82 points due to head coach Barry Trotz’s defensive-first system, Barzal was looking to take a step forward this year, already having 19 goals and 60 points in 68 games.
  • The GM also noted that defenseman Johnny Boychuk and fourth-liner Casey Cizikas are both expected to be ready whenever the season resumes. Both were tough losses that affected the teams’ most recent run. Boychuk went down on Mar. 3 when he took a skate to the eye and had 90 stitches. Cizikas has been out since Feb. 11 with a leg injury. Lamoriello also added that defenseman Adam Pelech is expected to be ready for training camp. The defenseman was signaled as lost for the season after sustaining an Achilles injury on Jan. 3.
  • Lamoriello also adds that the Belmont Park Arena, the Islanders’ future home, is still on target to be completed for the 2021-22 season. The team is currently playing in two different stadiums, including the Barclays Center and Nassau Coliseum. The team broke ground back in September of 2019.

Morning Notes: Skills Competition Results, Barzal, Ryan

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The NHL kicked off its All-Star festivities on Friday night with the Skills Competition as well as a three-on-three women’s game to showcase some of their talents as well.  Here are the results:

The All-Star Game festivities run tonight with NHL games resuming on Monday.

Elsewhere around the hockey world:

  • Mathew Barzal’s pending restricted free agency is going to be one of the more interesting ones to follow this summer. He has led the Islanders in points in each of his first two NHL seasons and currently leads them in scoring this season.  Despite that, Brett Cyrgalis of the New York Post suggests that the likeliest scenario is that he winds up with a short-term bridge contract.  GM Lou Lamoriello doesn’t seem like the type of manager to be willing to approach the contract that Toronto winger Mitch Marner received before the start of this season (a $10.893MM AAV) so the safer move would be to go with the short-term deal for now and go for the long-term deal down the road.
  • Kings defenseman Joakim Ryan is expected to be available for their first game after the All-Star break, notes Jon Rosen of LA Kings Insider. The 26-year-old has been out since late-December with a lower-body injury.  A pending unrestricted free agent with a cap hit of just $725K, Ryan could draw a little bit of trade interest over the next month from teams that are looking to add defensive depth but have limited cap space.  While he has just three points in 27 games this season, he’s averaging a career-high 18:48 in ice time per night.

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