New York Islanders Veteran Players Fans Want Traded

Nikolai Kulemin

Nikolai Kulemin is a fine hockey player. One of our former writers was a big fan. Like too big to make sense of it all.

Kulemin is great on the penalty kill, he’s a great forechecking player, he’s generally a good player to get possession back. What he isn’t that great at is putting the puck in the back of the net, and keeping the Isles cap lower than it should.

Since joining the Isles as a free agent back in 2014, Kulemin has scored 76 points across three seasons and 235 games. And all that production for the cut rate price of $4.1875 million on the cap…

I don’t mind having Nikolai Kulemin in the Isles roster, nor do most of you, except for that one fan boy out there. What he brings to the table has a value, but it’s unfortunately much lower than $4.1875 million. Even considering how much Garth likes to pay his fourth line players.

Kulemin’s worth is lower thanks to his low-tier production and the fact that he’s in the last year of that deal.

Trading him at the start of the season might just return a bit more than by the trade deadline, that is maybe instead of a fourth round pick as a return the Isles might get a third round pick out of it. Or not teams will know the Isles are looking to get out from under that terrible deal.

Next: Isles Power Play Should Improve In 2017-18

Who’s that one player you want the New York Islanders to move? I could imagine a number of fans wanting to move Andrew Ladd after last year’s debacle, and that’s fair, but I can’t see a team wanting to take that monster $5.5 million seven year deal.