Rumor: Lamoriello looking to move two former first round picks off the Islanders roster.

Islanders looking to make big changes.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
Rumor: Lamoriello looking to move two former first round picks off the Islanders roster.
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It sounds like the New York Islanders are going to be very busy this season.

The Islanders underwent a huge number of changes during the most recent offseason, making a major change in their front office with the acquisition of veteran National Hockey League executive Lou Lamoriello and of course losing their captain John Tavares in free agency to the Toronto Maple Leafs organization. As a result of the drastic changes to the team many expected there to be considerable changes this past summer but Lamoriello reportedly decided to go the patient route and evaluate what he had on his roster before making any major moves.

Now several games into the 2018 - 2019 National Hockey League regular season it sounds like the Islanders have already made some of those key decision, or at the very least they appear to be strongly leaning in one direction. The Fourth Period's David Pagnotta believes that of the Islanders' big three pending unrestricted free agents, forward Jordan Eberle, forward Brock Nelson, and forward Anders Lee, only Lee will be retained by the Islanders once the dust has settled. 

Lee and his representation have reportedly already engaged in negotiations with the Islanders and although no new deal has been agreed to there is interest on both sides to get something done. According to Pagnotta however neither Nelson nor Eberle have had any kind of meaningful contract negotiations with the Islanders and in fact those negotiations may not take place at all between now and July 1st when both men will become unrestricted free agents. In fact Pagnotta believes that, depending on how the Islanders perform this season, there's a real chance that both men could find themselves traded out of New York ahead of the 2019 NHL trade deadline. 

Interestingly enough it appears as though there is a third player that Lamoriello would be willing to deal in a potential trade, and that player is veteran defenseman Nick Leddy. Unlike Eberle and Nelson, Leddy has three years remaining on his current contract and as a player with term the Islanders would likely be seeking a considerable return in the trade. I may be reading too much into this but if all three of these men are on the trading block I think it's fair to suggest that Lamoriello may not have been overly impressed by their performances for the Islanders since he took over the hockey operations. 

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