Islanders roster may take a massive hit in the offseason.

Islanders roster in limbo after second round elimination.

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HockeyFeed
Published 7 years ago
Islanders roster may take a massive hit in the offseason.

The New York Islanders suffered a difficult second round exit on Sunday night, one that came after the team made the decision to gamble with pending free agents by not trading them at the National Hockey League's trade deadline. As a result the Islanders are now facing an offseason that could leave their roster significantly depleted.

The biggest loss, and arguably the most likely to occur, would be the departure of forward Kyle Okposo as an unrestricted free agent who would arguably be irreplaceable. Okposo had 22 goals for the Islanders this season, and 64 points in 79 games as part of the Islanders top line alongside captain John Tavares, and breaking up that chemistry could also impact Tavares' performance. Okposo refused to comment on the situation after the loss.

"I'll talk about it in a couple of days, but it's a little bit too fresh to talk about it," Okposo said as per NHL.com.

He's not the only free agent the Islanders need to worry about either, veteran forward Frans Nielson will also become an unrestricted free agent this summer, and he has long been a stapble of the Islanders up the middle, and accounting for 52 points of production this season. Nielson appeared to leave the possibility of a return open.

"I've always been proud of representing this organization," said Nielsen, who has played over 600 games with the Islanders. "There's a lot of time now in the summer and we'll see what happens. I haven't put a lot of thought into it lately, but I've always been proud to wear this jersey.

The Islanders also have the matter of the trade demands from defenseman Travis Hamonic to worry about, and by all accounts it sounds like the situation for Hamonic has not changed. It's unclear what will happen moving forward, he wasn't move despite making the demands last summer, and muck like Okposo Hamonic refused to comment after the loss.

"Not right now. Please," he said. "You guys have respected it all year. I appreciate that."

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