By Sean Gentille, Dom Luszczyszyn and Shayna Goldman
“If at first you don’t succeed, dust it off and try again” is one way to look at it. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” is another.
That’s where we’re at on Long Island, as the team runs it back with a roster that isn’t too different from where it left off.
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While a big change was made last deadline with the Bo Horvat addition, this summer’s focus was on long contract extensions up and down the lineup. Handing out a bunch of lengthy deals gives the team cost certainty. But it also ups the pressure to maximize the years of those deals because of lost flexibility to work around them.
The Islanders have only cemented themselves into this window further. Now they have to prove their best days aren’t behind them, and that there are more deep playoff runs left in the tank.
The projection
The Islanders earned 93 points last season and got into the playoffs by the skin of their teeth. What do we expect from them this year? More of the same. A 92-point finish and a dogfight to make the playoffs. The Islanders’ 43 percent chance puts them 10th in the East, 4.2 points off the projected eighth seed.
That has less to do with the Islanders and more to do with how competitive the East is slated to be this season. A 92-point season was enough in 2023, but that’s unlikely in 2024.
The issue here is that a lot of the teams around the Islanders improved and they didn’t. This is still an elite defensive team backed by one of the best goalies in the world, but it’s also one of the worst offensive teams in the league. That makeup plays well in the postseason, but it makes it hard to actually get there. An offseason of inaction did them no favors and given the ages of everyone on the roster, it’s difficult to see an unexpected breakout to get New York over the hump either.
The Islanders have a decent shot of making the playoffs and would be a hard out if they did. But as it stands now, it’s only an outside chance. They’re good, but in the East, “good” isn’t good enough.

Percentiles with the bar graphs are based on each player’s Offensive, Defensive and Net Rating relative to their time-on-ice slot, i.e. the first forward is compared to other first forwards only.
The strengths
The single biggest reason for optimism about the Islanders this season, yet again, is Ilya Sorokin. No goaltender in the NHL does more for his team. In 2022-23, Sorokin tied for second in games played (62), third in save percentage (.924) and first in goals saved above expected (50.24). The latter is prime Henrik Lundqvist stuff, the second-highest mark on record and bested only by Lundqvist’s 2009-10 season. That was enough to get Sorokin a second-place finish in the Vezina running and ninth place for the Hart. You could make the argument he deserved better, especially on a team that made the playoffs by all of two points. If Sorokin was a tick worse than all-world over the course of the season, the Islanders don’t win a wild-card spot. (And the Panthers don’t get matched up against the Bruins, and the Penguins don’t wind up trading for Erik Karlsson … call it “The Sorokin Effect.”)
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That status, and the caliber of his play over the last few years (not just 2022-23) is reflected in his projected Net Value; he leads all goaltenders at plus-21, immediately ahead of Juuse Saros (plus-18), Igor Shesterkin (plus-17) and Andrei Vasilevskiy (plus-16).
It’s worth pointing out specifically that Sorokin’s play didn’t come in a Barry Trotz-era, chance-limited environment, either. Last season, the Islanders allowed their highest expected goals-against rate at five-on-five since 2010-11. There was a lot of high-quality traffic in front of Sorokin, in other words, and he navigated it about as well as possible. Linus Ullmark led the NHL in save percentage, quality starts and stolen wins while playing on one of the best regular-season teams in the history of the league, so Sorokin wasn’t robbed for the Vezina or anything — but he still might be the best goalie on the planet at the moment.
Wild as it may be to read, Barzal, by projection alone, isn’t a strength for this team. His point production over the past several seasons (four straight years between 66 and 72 points) simply doesn’t stack up with other No. 1 or No. 2 forwards, let alone match his talent level. Still, given what Barzal does with the puck — and what the rest of the Islanders forwards don’t — he winds up in this spot. Few players can bring the puck up ice like him or gain the offensive zone more effectively. His passing ability is outstanding. That’s becoming the story of his career, though; a skill set capable of fostering faith that isn’t quite backed up by data.
Why is that the case? At least a chunk of it is due to the Islanders’ system (historically speaking) and Barzal’s supporting cast. An elite playmaker needs an elite finisher, or even just a competent one. The Islanders have been low on options on that front and it showed with Josh Bailey being Barzal’s most frequent linemate last season. Now, though, with Bo Horvat as a running mate with offensive instincts and a coach with a little more interest in pushing the pace, Barzal feels like he’s at the start of a pivotal season.
GO DEEPER
Islanders' big question: Will Horvat and Barzal form the 1-2 punch this team needs?
Elsewhere at forward, Brock Nelson is coming off a second straight 39-goal season, with most of that damage done at five-on-five. He’s 10th in goals per 60 among players with at least 1,000 minutes played in the last two seasons (1.29), tied with Nathan MacKinnon. Some of that production came at the expense of his defensive numbers, but the Islanders can probably afford the trade-off. Oliver Wahlstrom was an efficient point producer on the wing (2.2/60) before a knee injury ended his season in December and could end up to the left of Horvat and Barzal. The No. 18 pick in 2018, Wahlstrom is a rare Islander with offensive upside.
While the Islanders’ overall defensive dip made Sorokin’s season more impressive, it didn’t happen across the board. They’re projected to be an above-average defensive team in 2023-24, and the blue line is still firmly above average in its defensive impacts, led by Adam Pelech. He remains a source of stability and consistency for the Islanders, capable of handling big minutes and a ton of responsibility — puck retrievals, entry defense — despite not producing many points. His plus-4 projected Defensive Rating is in line with his rep as one of the league’s true shutdown defensemen and comes after a dip in performance in 2021-22. One reason the Islanders had to white-knuckle their way into the playoffs was the 21 games Pelech missed due to injury.
The model also projects Noah Dobson to have a third straight productive season. A plus-7 Offensive Rating, in that phase of the game, would make him No. 1 caliber. The 23-year-old right shot had 49 points in 2022-23 and drove plenty of offense; the Islanders’ 34 shots/60 with him on the ice were the most of any player who was on the roster for the majority of the season. He’s a talented passer, as backed up by some sparkling high-danger and chance assist rates tracked by All Three Zones. He likely needs another season to make it into the Player Tiers, but it’s worth noting that one veteran scout, when asked for the list’s biggest omission, brought up Dobson first.
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A little further down the lineup, Scott Mayfield and Alex Romanov also gave the Islanders decent minutes in their own end that helped project them to be competent second- and third-pair defensemen, respectively. Both were effective against zone entries, with Mayfield providing a bit more in the way of puck-moving. He signed a new contract that’ll pay him $3.5 million a year until 2030, when he’s 37 years old, and he’s certainly worth it for the time being. Sebastian Aho was strong in his first full season and rounds out what should be a top-10 defense corps.
The weaknesses
This is where we’re going to have a quick Bo Horvat discussion. The point isn’t to say having Horvat on the team makes the Islanders worse; that isn’t true. The issue, though, is that based on past performance and future projection, he’s not a seamless fit as a top-two forward, assuming you want to field an elite team.
Horvat drove play effectively after the Islanders acquired him. While he was on the ice at five-on-five, they produced 0.3 more goals per 60 minutes and took 4.25 more shots/60 than they did without him. They also, almost terminally, couldn’t finish, posting a hellacious disparity between actual goals (15) and expected (nearly 25) with him on the ice. A chunk of that was his fault. A chunk of it was regression; his personal shooting percentage went from above 21 percent in Vancouver (!) to around 8 percent on the Island. For his career, he sits somewhere in the middle. A chunk of it was due to a lack of offensive weapons around him, especially while Barzal was out; the Islanders’ shooting percentage while Barzal was on the ice was 5.92, a bit more than half of what the Canucks posted before the trade.
Odds are, he’ll be better this season in a hurry; he’s had time to acclimate and is prepping for a full season on a line with Barzal. He also almost can’t be worse. Most of all, though, it’s a lesson that really good players — whether they’re overpaid or not — are going to hit the skids more often than elite ones. If the Isles were insulated a bit better — even if it were just with a couple more plus offensive players, rather than another All-Star — it would’ve been less of an issue.
That leads us into the Islanders’ biggest actual weakness: Past Anders Lee, a perfectly cromulent second-line winger at this point of his career, there’s very little offensive upside in the forward group. The minus-22 Offensive Rating from the forwards ranks third last in the league and 15 goals beneath the worst projected playoff team: Minnesota. The Wild and Jets are the only playoff teams expected to get below-average offense from their forwards and it’s probably not a great sign that the Islanders are closer to the likes of Chicago and San Jose.
When we said earlier that Barzal is the only Islander with puck-toting ability, it was barely hyperbole. New York put up the lowest carry-in percentage in the league last season, and no personnel was brought in to change that.
It starts with the defense, which struggles overall with retrievals and exits; Dobson moves the needle with the puck. Pelech can help. Ryan Pulock, though, has collapsed as a play-driver from the back end over the past couple years. It also extends to Lane Lambert’s ongoing, relentless usage of The Identity Line, despite those three players’ inability to produce any offense of note at this point in their time together.
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A potential fix to all of this, of course, would be if the Islanders got anything whatsoever from their power play. Last season, only two teams — Anaheim and Philadelphia — had a lower conversion percentage. At a per/60 rate, only the Flyers fared worse. There’s reason to believe that things will get better; Barzal and Horvat spending more than 15 or 16 minutes on the unit will go a long way, and its process wasn’t quite as bad as the results indicated (20th in expected goals/60). Still, though — yikes.
The wild card
How much is The Best Fourth Line In Hockey holding the Islanders back?
There was a time when Casey Cizikas, Cal Clutterbuck and Matt Martin were valuable assets to the Islanders. An identity line that could control possession, eat the clock and ruffle some feathers in the process. The Best Fourth Line In Hockey was a legitimately valuable piece of the Islanders puzzle and was paid handsomely for it, too.
As Cizikas (32), Clutterbuck (35) and Martin (34) age, that’s become less and less true. Last year they fell off a cliff, controlling only 40 percent of the expected goals as a result of their expected goals-against rate ballooning from 1.72 to 2.88. Combine that with their offense dropping off even further and it was much harder to see the trio’s utility.
That’s only expected to get worse this season as the players get further into their 30s. The line has a combined Net Rating of minus-30, 10 goals worse than an average team’s three worst players.
It’s not a ground-breaking amount, but it is worth about four standings points. That may not sound like much, but it’s the exact difference between being projected to finish 10th in the East versus eighth. It’s the difference between the Islanders having a 43 percent chance at the postseason and a 58 percent chance. And it’s a whole lot for a fourth line — especially for a team on the playoff bubble that’s paying said players $5.75 million this season.
And that’s just for an average fourth line. This was once the league’s very best, and if it still was, the Islanders would have a much firmer grasp of a playoff spot. Instead, it’s now arguably the worst and it leaves the Islanders on the outside of the race.
The best case
Sorokin maintains his Vezina-caliber play and has true support from up and down the lineup. Horvat proves his career year wasn’t a fluke, elevating Barzal along the way. Dobson jumps out as the team’s best two-way defenseman. The Islanders are a bona fide playoff team and prove management right by running it back.
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The worst case
Horvat can’t recreate last year’s scoring jump and looks like an overpaid mistake, and Barzal wilts on the wing. The aging core disappoints, while Wahlstrom’s and Dobson’s development stalls. Management refuses to get proactive or innovative and the Islanders don’t kick-start a quick retool, landing them just outside the playoff race with even less hope for the future.
The bottom line
On one hand, the Islanders are one of the best defensive teams in the league led by arguably the league’s best goalie. They’re a team that grinds to victory and is built to win in the playoffs.
On the other hand, the Islanders are one of the worst offensive teams in the league, led by a forward group that will struggle to generate much outside of a few key players. They’re a team that could be prone to long cold stretches if the top guys aren’t on every night.
Something could give on either front to push the Islanders firmly into the playoffs or firmly into the lottery to jump-start a quick retool. As it stands now, the best bet is right in the league’s mushy middle — a place the Islanders have called home for three straight seasons. They’ve averaged 92.4 points over that time frame, why expect anything different?
References
Understanding projection uncertainty
Resources
All Three Zones Tracking by Corey Sznajder
Read the other 2023-24 season previews here.
(Photo of Brock Nelson, Casey Cizikas and Ilya Sorokin: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
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