Islanders Couldn’t Get Deal Done For Zach Parise

The New York Islanders appeared close to landing Zach Parise but a deal was unable to get done between the two sides.

Lou Lamoriello made a big splash by trading for JG Pageau and then extending him for a six-year contract. While that was the only move the New York Islanders made today, it didn’t appear like that would be the case earlier on Deadline Day.

It was reported that Lou Lamoriello was pushing hard for Zach Parise. Parise, who is now 35 years old, was drafted by Lou in 2003 when he was the GM of the New Jersey Devils.

Despite his age, Parise is still a productive goal scorer in the NHL. This year, he has 21 goals in 61 games which is a pace of 28 goals and 50 points. Rumored to be going the other direction was Andrew Ladd.

Ladd, as Islander fans know well, has been a major bust for the Islanders since signing here in 2016. He’s played just two games in the NHL this year and has just been recalled by the Islanders after a deal didn’t go through.

What made this complicated for both sides was the term for both players. Parise has five more years left on his deal at $7.5 million while Ladd has another three at $5.5 million but each of the two players waived their respective no-move and no-trade clauses.

The easy part was getting the players to waive their trade protection. The hard part was figuring out the retained salary and whatnot.

A deal wasn’t done in time but don’t count this out for the Islanders in the offseason as it was reported that there were talks of this trade happening last summer and it fell through as well.

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It’s rare that we see these kinds of deals at the deadline so it would’ve been a huge surprise for Lou Lamoriello to pull off. Still, trading for and then signing JG Pageau was a much-needed boost and a job well done by Lou.