The NHL season is quickly approaching. To speed up the wait until the puck finally drops on the season, I\u2019ll be previewing one team every day. I\u2019ll be going one division at a time and publishing these in the order I think they\u2019ll finish from first to worst. I\u2019m starting with the Metropolitan Division.<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s finish: 6th in Metropolitan Division<\/p>\n
Playoffs: No playoffs<\/p>\n
Predicted finish: 8th in Metropolitan Division<\/p>\n
It\u2019s amazing what one lucky set of ping-pong balls can do for an organization. <\/p>\n
Heading into the 2025 NHL Draft lottery, the Islanders were in no-man\u2019s land. They finished well outside of the playoff conversation, but they were only a perfectly mediocre 35-35-12. It was an uncomfortable position for a team that wasn\u2019t exactly young. <\/p>\n
But the hockey gods smiled upon the Islanders, and New York won the draft lottery despite having a 3.5 percent chance of doing so. The Islanders used the pick to take defenseman Matthew Schaefer, and the rest is history. <\/p>\n
Schaefer was a little bit of an unknown entering the league last year because he missed most of his draft year due to injury. Schaefer wasn\u2019t really expected to be the same caliber of player as the last two first overall picks (Macklin Celebrini and Connor Bedard), and it\u2019s rare for 18-year-old defensemen to make it to the NHL straight out of the draft. <\/p>\n
But Schaefer was immediately a game-changing talent for the Islanders. Schaefer was extremely productive in the offensive end, finishing the year with 59 points. It wasn\u2019t just all points, either, as Schaefer dominated his minutes. With Schaefer on the ice at five on five, the Islanders had a 50.2 percent expected goals share and a plus-14 goal differential. Without him, New York\u2019s expected goals share dropped to 45.8 percent with a minus-27 goal differential. <\/p>\n
Schaefer, despite only turning 18 last September, finished the year as the league\u2019s third-best defenseman, according to Hockey Stats\u2019 WAR metric. Schaefer\u2019s big year was boosted by some incredible finishing, as he scored a whopping 23 goals on 17.2 expected. But even if the finishing regresses this year, he\u2019s still going to create a lot with his shot, which is a weapon at both five on five and on the power play.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ilya Sorokin is still one of the league\u2019s best netminders. After struggling three years ago and then having a decent year in 2024-25, Sorokin was back at the top of his game last season. Sorokin saved 27.5 goals above expected (GSAx), which was the second-most in the league. Since the 2021-22 season, only Igor Shesterkin and Connor Hellebuyck have a better GSAx than Sorokin. <\/p>\n
With a phenom in Schaefer, a franchise goaltender in Sorokin and a one-two punch of forwards in Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat, the Islanders should be able to steal some games. But there\u2019s not enough behind them to make them a truly competitive team. <\/p>\n
Even with all of those players, the Islanders were 24th in expected goals share at five on five, and it\u2019s not like there\u2019s much of a youth movement aside to suggest they\u2019ll improve. <\/p>\n
Aside from Schaefer and Adam Pelech, the defensive corps is a mess. Alexander Romanov hasn\u2019t panned out like the Islanders hoped when they traded a first-round pick for him, and he missed most of last season. Pretty much everyone else is over the age of 30 and declining. Ryan Pulock and Scott Mayfield were fine defensemen during the Islanders\u2019 trips to the conference finals, but it\u2019s not 2021 anymore. Tony DeAngelo is also still here somehow. <\/p>\n
The forward group isn\u2019t much better. The Islanders paid up for Brayden Schenn at the trade deadline for some reason, and his best days are behind him. The same goes for Kyle Palmieri and Ondrej Palat. Matias Maccelli is a decent depth add, and hopefully Calum Ritchie puts it together this year. But there\u2019s just not much to write home about here. Anders Lee leaving for Utah is also a huge loss. <\/p>\n
Schaefer is going to change the franchise\u2019s fortunes, but for now, the Islanders still have a lot of growing pains to get through. <\/p>\n
All stats are from Hockey Stats<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL season is quickly approaching. To speed up the wait until the puck finally drops on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-886646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}