Islanders: Will Andrew Ladd be Mikhail Grabovski 2.0 in the Expansion Draft?

Looking ahead to the expansion draft, the New York Islanders have a similar situation with one of their players that they faced in the 2017 offseason.

The year was 2017 and the Vegas Golden Knights were ready to make their selections in their expansion draft. All New York Islanders fans were curious on who Vegas was going to steal from the Islanders, but the Islanders decided to make an interesting trade with Vegas involving a player who was probably not going to play in the NHL again due to an injury.

The Islanders sent Mikhail Grabovski, Jake Bischoff, and two entry-level draft picks to the “Sin City” in exchange for expansion draft considerations. You may ask yourself what do those considerations mean?

Obviously, teams cannot protect every player on their roster from potentially getting selected by the new franchise. So teams, like the Islanders did here, will make an extremely nice offer in return that the expansion franchise will stay away from certain players.

Going into Vegas’ draft the Islanders could not protect the likes of Brock Nelson, Josh Bailey, Casey Cizikas, Cal Clutterbuck, Scott Mayfield and many others. So the Islanders made this trade to protect their valuable players who they could not protect and keep them on the Long Island for years to come.

The great news of that deal was the Islanders got rid of the remaining year and $5 million left on Grabovski’s contract and Vegas took all of it. Grabovski got traded to Vegas after missing the entire prior season with a concussion and it was highly unlikely that he would play again.

Andrew Ladd is a player that reminds a lot of people of Grabovski. In 2014 the Islanders signed, the at the time thirty year old, Grabovski to a four year $20 million contract carrying an average annual value of $5 million per season. The Isles did the same thing with a Ladd at the same age.

On July 1, 2016 the Islanders and Ladd (who was 30) agreed to a contract of $38,500,000 over seven season. His deal has an AAV of $5,500,000. A couple years after both of these players signed with the blue and orange, they both suffered injuries that derailed their careers and their contracts became burdens on the Isles.

Going into Seattle’s draft, the Isles may have the same issue as what they had with Vegas. It is projected that there will be some very intriguing names on the Isles unprotected list that Seattle can steal from them. Some of those players may include: Kieffer Bellows, Otto Koivula, Jordan Eberle, Scott Mayfield, Sebastian Aho, and Cal Clutterbuck.

Want your voice heard? Join the Eyes On Isles team!

Write for us!

With all this being said, the Islanders may look to pull another type of Grabovski trade with the Kraken involving Ladd. They could send a nice package to Seattle in exchange that they eat Ladd’s contract for a season (to get off the cap floor) and the Isles will receive considerations in the draft.

Isles Country: Do you think the Islanders will try and pull off a similar move with Ladd to the Seattle Kraken, as they did when they sent Grabovski to Vegas? Leave your comments below!