The New York Islanders won the draft lottery, and the reaction, aside from immediate euphoria, was speculation on who they should take with the top pick. The 2025 NHL Entry Draft, unlike the 2023 and 2024 editions, doesn’t have a clear-cut top pick or a generational talent expected to take over the league from day one. However, the Islanders can still select a difference-maker to turn the team into a contender.
Related: Islanders Still Have Lots of Work Following Draft Lottery
The big three prospects on the draft board (or most people’s rankings) are forward Michael Misa, defenseman Matthew Schaefer, and James Hagens, who is a tier below the first two players mentioned but also an elite talent. All three have great cases for the Islanders to select them, yet history is on the side of one prospect, especially this team’s history.
The Islanders, to their credit, don’t have a history of drafting with the number one pick (they’ve had bad seasons but not bad enough). They’ve only had the top selection four times in their team history, and one of those picks was used on a goaltender, Rick DiPietro. So, there’s not a lot of precedent for how they’ll use the 2025 version. There is, however, some draft history with this team that will play into how they’ll go about winning the lottery and planning to add the next great talent to their roster.
Hagens: Islanders Draft the Hometown Kid
Hagens grew up on Long Island, and it makes him an easy pick for a team that hasn’t had a homegrown talent drafted and developed in their backyard. Other teams have had that experience, not just recently but since the beginning of the league’s founding, where a Quebec kid like Guy Lafleur joined the Montreal Canadiens and became a star on a dynasty. There won’t be another Lafleur, but Hagens would be the hometown star for the Islanders, which would also save them a few headaches down the road.
The Islanders remember John Tavares and how he ended up signing with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2018 offseason to play for his hometown team (yes, fans are still upset about that). The Islanders are a great place to play, but not a destination. Very few grow up wanting to play for them (it’s an issue plenty of non-traditional markets also deal with, and no tax breaks can change that). That won’t be an issue with Hagens, and on the contrary, they can brand him as the hometown face of the franchise.
The problem is that selecting Hagens misses the boat. Is he a great prospect? Absolutely! Is he the best player on the board? He could prove everyone wrong, but according to most people, he’s a tier below Misa and Schaefer. Ideally, the Islanders would take Hagens if they had the third pick, making the selection feel like a reach to some but one that made sense. They have the top selection and must operate accordingly, where emotion or branding desire doesn’t get in the way of the best decision.
Misa: Islanders Draft Need First, Talent Second
The Islanders will rebuild the forward unit if they select Misa. It’s something they’ve needed to do for a while, and they can do it with one pick. The top six is led by Bo Horvat and Mathew Barzal, two great players who aren’t game-changers, and the team needs stars who can take them to the next level. Misa does that, and with the help of Cole Eiserman already in the system, the Islanders could have an elite top six on the way.
The question is if Misa’s the best player on the board. There’s plenty of debate whether he is or if Schaefer’s the better prospect, but most people lean towards the defenseman and not the forward. That said, Misa fills a bigger need on the roster. The team needs star power in their forward group, and he brings that.
The one reason to avoid taking Misa is that there’s a chance he won’t be the best player in this draft. Teams that draft for need over talent always regret it, and if the Islanders let Schaefer slide, they will always look back at this draft and wonder what could have been.
Trade Down? History Suggests Otherwise
The Islanders have the top pick and shouldn’t overthink it. Sure, there’s always the intrigue of asking for a king’s ransom and trading down, especially when a team has multiple issues on their roster that won’t be fixed by one pick. However, it’s better to just keep it and draft the best player on the board.
The Islanders, of all teams, should know this firsthand. They traded away the second overall pick in the 2001 Draft with the idea of both adding veteran talent and loading up on future assets. That pick ended up becoming Jason Spezza, who would put together a remarkable career in the NHL. With Lou Lamoriello’s firing, the Islanders are still looking for a new general manager (GM). The last thing a new hire will want to do is come in, move out the first pick, and see another team land a Hall of Fame caliber player (which is unlikely to happen, but you never know).
Islanders Have Historic Reason to Draft Schaefer
The last time the Islanders had the number one pick, they selected Tavares. Okay, but what about the last time they used the top pick to take a defenseman? Well, that was in 1973 when Bill Torrey took Denis Potvin. Now, that seems like an intriguing reason to go with a defenseman, at least on a superficial level.
Potvin was one of the best defensemen of all time and certainly, the best to wear an Islanders jersey. He won the Norris Trophy three times, scored 310 goals, and added 742 assists over a 15-year career while helping the Islanders become a dynasty by winning the Stanley Cup title four times in a row. Potvin was a one-of-a-kind talent.
Nobody can compare to Potvin, and certainly, a 17-year-old defenseman like Schaefer can’t draw the similarities. However, having an elite defenseman on the roster goes a long way, and that’s what Schaefer projects to become. He’ll change the dynamics of the Islanders’ roster in more than one way.
Matthew Schaefer, Erie Otters (OHL Images)
It’s easy to look back at the dynasty teams and say that the entire roster was great, and it was. There’s also a good argument that the team was built around Mike Bossy, and if the Islanders want to return to their glory days, they should look for the next “Bossy” (or try with the hope that Hagens or Misa are that at the forward position). However, Potvin was the cog in the machine and the catalyst that fueled the run in the 1980s. If the Islanders want to build a Cup-caliber team, it starts with an elite defenseman, and their best bet of finding one is in Schaefer. He won’t be Potvin, yet he’ll be the player they can build around.
Schaefer makes the defense core significantly better as he can turn defense into instant offense. Moreover, his skill upgrades the offense as well. 2022 Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar and reigning Norris winner Quinn Hughes change the dynamics of their teams as top defensemen, and Schaefer can do the same as the next great two-way player. Sure, the Islanders have a better defensive unit at the moment, but in the long run, he’d be the more impactful player and one they can’t pass up.
