Could the New York Islanders improve their defense?
Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period was on TSN Radio in Montreal Monday and was asked if the New York Islanders would take any action given the injuries on defense.
Transcripts from NHLRumors.com
Host: “You talk about the situation and you mentioned the Islanders very quickly. Lou Lamoriello is obviously not one to sit back and wait for things to happen. And, Matthew Barzal is injured. Adam Pelech is injured. Mike Reilly is injured. Alex Romanov is injured. When I talk about Pelech, Reilly and Romanov, isn’t that a little similar to the situation in Utah? I mean, Dave, that’s three left-handed defenders in your backcourt sales mix, like maybe they need to do something.
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Dave Pagnotta: “And you know, Samuel Bolduc arrived yesterday, and Patrick Roy I said enough was enough. He played just under six minutes. He threw every minute to the other five D. Yes, they still have a glaring need on their backs.
Now the difference here is that Pelech is out four to six weeks, not four to six months like Durzi and around four months for Marino. So a little different in that regard, as well as the fact that both Reilly and Romanov are day-to-day. At the moment they also have cap restrictions. Antoine Duclair is also in the infirmary, but he will be away for a few months.
So it’s not like anyone is leaving for the season where they can use the LTIR space and bring in a body. If they do something, they can tweak it here and there. And Lou Lamoriello is said to be looking to explore, as I mentioned earlier, exploring what the D market looks like. If something pops up, maybe he’ll jump on it. But they don’t have a lot of cap space. So any significant addition to this group will have to result in an outflow of money to accommodate the incoming money.
Again. Can they make some adjustments? Yes, they can be creative, but now they clearly don’t have it internally. If you want to make an addition, it must be done at the end of the day.
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And frankly, with the way the Islanders are going, I mean, yeah, Lou has the keys, but any big impact move might be hard to make for a guy who also has an expiring contract at the general manager level.
