{"id":436325,"date":"2026-01-29T06:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T06:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/436325\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T06:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T06:17:07","slug":"islanders-open-to-moving-a-first-round-pick-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/436325\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders Open To Moving A First-Round Pick \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Islanders were busy in the first round of the draft last season, adding Matthew Schaefer<\/a> first overall while making back-to-back selections in the middle of the round as part of the trade return for Noah Dobson<\/a>.\u00a0 Thanks to the Brock Nelson<\/a> trade last season, they have an extra pick on the opening night of the draft again this season.<\/p>\n

But it appears that their goal might be to turn one of those selections into some win-now help.\u00a0 Speaking with reporters today (video link<\/a>), GM Mathieu Darche<\/a> indicated that the team is open to moving one of their first-round selections.<\/p>\n

Darche has been busy in recent days, utilizing his LTIR space to add defenseman Carson Soucy<\/a> and winger Ondrej Palat<\/a> (plus two draft picks).\u00a0 They effectively serve as replacements for Alexander Romanov<\/a> and Kyle Palmieri<\/a>.\u00a0 However, Pierre Engvall<\/a> is also out for the year and on LTIR while Semyon Varlamov<\/a> hasn\u2019t played at all this season and a return is unlikely.\u00a0 He\u2019s also on LTIR and if the team knows he\u2019s not returning, his LTIR room can be used.\u00a0 Combined, the team has around $6MM in space, per PuckPedia<\/a>.\u00a0 That gives Darche lots of flexibility to work with.<\/p>\n

A willingness to part with a first-round pick should only pique the interest of rebuilding teams or those who decide to become sellers in the coming weeks.\u00a0 Speculatively, Darche\u2019s preference would be to move Colorado\u2019s selection rather than their own since the former will be in the back few selections of the round while New York\u2019s at the moment is closer to the late teens or low 20s.<\/p>\n

Every year, several buyers move out a first-round selection and that pick can often yield an impact performer.\u00a0 With the Islanders being willing to part with one of those picks, they could be shopping in a higher tier of the market than their last two moves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Islanders were busy in the first round of the draft last season, adding Matthew Schaefer first overall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[394,385,99],"class_list":["post-436325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}