NHL Trade Deadline: Islanders Stand Pat

“Prices sometimes get to be more detrimental than the asset”.  These words spoken by Islanders President and GM Lou Lamoriello tell you everything you need to know about how the trade deadline went for the Islanders.  It literally came and went without a transaction outside the organization.

There were many cliches Islander fans were throwing around before Lou made his initial comments following the 3 PM deadline on Monday.  Many of them hit close to home.  Things like “we like our guys in the room” or “we didn’t want to mess with the chemistry” are both somehow cliches and true at the same time.

There were rumors about Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene, Mark Stone and even Marcus Johansson.  There were even rumors that their package to Ottawa included Anthony Beauvillier and a first round pick.  However, none of that came to fruition and the Islanders stood pat, not wanting to disrupt the chemistry of the team or overpay for a rental.

In addition, they added two “deadline” acquisitions by bringing Thomas Hickey and Andrew Ladd off of IR and plugging them into the lineup.  Those are obviously two guys that the Islanders are familiar with and will hopefully plug seamlessly into the lineup.

Regardless of how much Islanders may complain about the non-deals, the Islanders are still in first place in the Metro with 79 points and this passive trade deadline must give the team a boost knowing that Lou Lamoriello thought very highly of all of the guys in the room.

What will come of it?  Who knows.  The Columbus Blue Jackets went all out and acquired both Ryan Dzingel and Matt Duchene.  The Washington Capitals made a few moves to improve themselves.  Even the Pittsburgh Penguins made some depth moves to improve their back end.  It may seem like the Islanders let every other team chasing them get better, but maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that they didn’t NEED to do anything.

We’ll see how the rest of the season shakes out but for now we can’t really judge what the Islanders did because no games have been played yet.  If the Islanders continue to struggle to score (only 178 GF – only two more than Detroit) and Mat Barzal struggles to play with Leo Komarov and Andrew Ladd, maybe Lou should have made the move.  However, if the Islanders just continue to win games the way they have all season there won’t be much chatter.