So, what if Malkin wants to keep going for it. The new GM does a Dubas vs a Trotz?
Lou or any GM can sunset the UFAs, but yes, the Isles will need to pay the Isles tax to sign new guys - that’s not changing. Otherwise, you are going all in on playing Wally types to extract as much out of that desert as you can (which is nothing).
This is what you fail to understand. It never should have gotten to letting contracts expire, especially for the guys down roster. Those are never the ones you overpay or overterm. You save that for your high end talent, which Lou never built up towards starting in 2021-22. With the contracts Lou created he took away his own flexibility and won't be able to replace a few key ones from within the organization on cost controlled contracts. That's not the way today's pro sports franchises operate.
Take Lou's media availability from yesterday.
"I believe in the group," said Lamoriello. "But we have to play to our capabilities."
www.newsday.com
The Islanders president/general manager just doesn’t believe in rebuilding.
“It’s only in recent years that ‘buyers and sellers’ have come out,” Lamoriello said in a wide-ranging sitdown prior to Thursday night’s match against the Blues at Enterprise Center.
“Now it’s become something prevalent in sports where you think you’re going to be able to use it as a reason to bleed and try and reload. I’m not a believer in that. If there are players that are not in your plans, then you have to look at something like that if you felt you weren’t going to have a chance to be in the playoffs.”
Lou has put the team in such a precarious position that if Malkin wants to keep "going for it" with mediocre results it will cost him asses in seats of his multi million dollar arena, not spending money at any of the other components of NYAP's Belmont development project. And the mess will be left for the next GM to clean up.
In a salary cap world teams eventually must reload. Lou is committing mismanagement. Operating with an expired playbook.
I don’t care whether Lou stays or goes. Some of players this franchise is relying on worked as a unit under Trotz, they don’t work as one outside that. Some of these players are too comfortable and some are selfish and are just not very good anymore. The composition of the CORE needs to change - the fringe is a big whatever.
And they're also 3 years older after playing a style that accented team play and had them outperforming their talent level. I don't just think it's a matter of some are too comfortable and some are selfish. An outsider coach was just hired, someone who has no loyalties to any player in the room and he's dressing the same guys and getting the same results as the previous coach.
This core has timed out. Everyone sees that except Lou. And maybe Scott Malkin.