New York Islanders Should Weaponize Their LTIR Space at Trade Deadline

New York Islanders Should Weaponize Their LTIR Space at Trade Deadline

Um, which kind of gets us to our next point, right? In terms of weaponizing the LTI, that is, I think, a perfect transition into uh getting into the LTIR. Uh, so I was reading an article, um, and it was saying that the Islanders could get up to 16.75 million in cap space by using LTIR if they add Romanov, Pali, Angal’s already there, and Seamian Varlamov. I forgot about Angvall and Vley, right? Um, yeah. Yeah, Angvall’s got three million there. You’ve got Vley that’s 275 and yeah like we know Romanov is probably done for the year right they said four to six months right uh I thought it was six okay which is that’s that’s basically it and assuming we’re not making the playoffs so that’s another 625 and then yeah Kyle is done for for the year definitely that’s 475 on the cap like just those two last guys is over $10 million yeah Romanov was five to six months right um so five months would put um that at the end of April, which is through the regular season, right? If they made the playoffs, maybe they could come up with a scenario where he’s he’s coming back to the playoffs, but an ACL Kyle Pome is not going to be ready for the playoffs for on an ACL. No, exactly. So, there’s a ton of room there that they could use to bring in contracts either just just to hold uh the some monies or or just, you know, bring in players like we’ll take this guy for the la last couple of months so you can make room and make your big run or whatever and we’ll take a second. Heck, we’ll take a first, right? Like depending on who the player is. I remember the Toronto Maples traded Patrick Marlo’s contract and they they sent a first along with it. That was a while ago. But man, like at this point, will will a team like the Vegas Golden Knights who are $4 million over the cap, not want to make a move at the deadline? Probably. Yeah, maybe. Maybe they would, right? And can we take on like that’s a big contract. I’m trying to find like someone who’s Jeremy Laz for $2 million on a He’s on a one-year deal for $2 million. Can we not take that? Is he a righty? No, he’s a lefty. Uh, can we not take him for a couple of months? See if he works out. Maybe not. Whatever. That’s different than I I want to make it clear that’s very different than the buying we talked about in the first segment because this is you would get assets along with the player, right? Or if it’s, you know, there’s been teams or or trades where multiple teams are involved to make the money work and maybe the Islanders could be a part of one of those packages as well. Yeah, exactly. So, it’s about using that cap space to help other teams do what they’re trying to do and then bring in extra assets to enable that. It’s what assets are you going to be able to get for them. I think for us is it doesn’t matter. If you’re getting thirds and fourths, who cares? There’s thirds and fourths you didn’t have before and you can package those together to get a second and then a second is worth a whole lot more than the third and fourth and you could do with that that you weren’t able to do beforehand is the entire point, right? And that’s the year or this is the kind of year rather where you would want to do that, right? Because you have or you had a a draft with three first round picks, you have another one coming up with two. This you could really set yourself up where the 2026 draft and offseason is really like your your launch into turning the corner, right? Like cuz last year’s offseason I felt like was the first year of starting the reset. next off season coming up could be that point where you’re like, “All right, let’s add an additional, you know, first round pick.” Maybe we’re trading the Colorado pick for a young defenseman and, you know, you just add as many more assets as you can and like, “All right, let’s let’s try to start opening this window again.” Exactly. And like there’s a ton of teams out there that don’t have a lot of cap space. Uh, two, four, six, eight, 10, 12 teams have about $2 million worth of cap space. Not not all of them are going to make the playoffs. Like the Boston Bruins probably aren’t going to do it. Um but you still have Vegas, Florida, Edmonton, Toronto in there. I understand Edmonton and Toronto aren’t in a playoff spot, but we expect them to be there at some point, but they’re in a spot where it’s like they they kind of are forced to go for it, right? You can’t be like, “Hey, you know, we’re we have Conor McDavid and Leon Destle. We’re actually going to just sell off some pieces here.” No, they they’re going to be the team that’s trying to finagle some roster decisions to push towards a playoff spot. Exactly. And so they they’re going to be wanting to move off some of these contracts like Edmonton’s has $160,000 worth of cap space. Um they have Capp and Noah Phillip on LTIR, but they are just over $2 million, $2.075 million combined in LTI space. That’s just not enough. And I think they’re using that. No, they’re not using it just yet. But still, they’re going to want to move some pieces. Like, can we take Adam Henrik at $3 million? That was the exact player that I was going to reference. Not that he’s had a great year. He only has seven points so far this year, but like he has he’s what, $3 million? And you could probably get because that’s a cap dump. Think about all the different cap dumps the Islanders had to make. And I know the league was a little in a different spot when they did it, but you know, they traded uh a second round pick and to free up Andrew Lad. They traded a second round pick to free up Josh Bailey. It was a long in the future second round pick, but a second round pick still a second round pick, Mitch. Yeah. And like if they’re in, you know, the running for someone like Jean Gabriel PJO, like, okay, well, we’ll take back that $3 million to help you with the cap, but like that increases the price. Now you’re definitely getting a first round pick for Jean Gabriel. Although they don’t have a first rounder in 2026, but if you get a second firstrounder in 2027, then you’ve got first multiple first round picks over three years, and you don’t even need those. No, exactly. And that would be interesting, right? Like if it was a second this year and a first next year and taking on Adam Henrique, something like that, right? Exactly. And these aren’t like scenarios we want to see happen. These are just things that we’re thinking off the cuff. No. And talking through. Exactly. But there are potent there are possibilities out there that we are going to be able to utilize if not even just like a third party in a trade. Right. Like we’ve seen that happen so many times where other teams who are in the playoff hunt like Carolina’s done it multiple times where they’re just facilitating a trade like yo you need us to to take 25% of a contract done. What is that? A third round pick deal. We could be that team. Yeah. And just stockpile additional picks and and we’re not saying that you have to stick and and pick at all those spots, but you can move around the draft board. You can move picks for players, right? Like there’s so much you could do at that point. I mean, we we’ve talked about the Islanders needing to revamp the fourth line. You could trade mid-round picks for, you know, good, cheap, and good fourth line options. Absolutely, man. Um, so like it’ll be interesting to see what Metro Dash does as GM at a trade deadline uh within the confines and the context of where the New York Islanders are, whether that’s in the playoff picture or not. But like, do we weaponize our cap space for once? because we we’ve asked Lamarrella to do that for years and not once has he done it. Um we we’ll see if we can do it this time. Yep. It’s going to be interesting, right? Because we we saw his first off season uh obviously had the luxury of having the number one overall pick and being able to draft Matthew Schaefer, but we haven’t seen him uh act at the trade deadline. And I don’t know if it’s fair to point to like Tampa Bay where he came from because they were in a very different spot. They were going for it pretty much every single year that he was with them.

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