Islanders: Three Storylines As Training Camp Approaches

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Jean-Gabriel Pageau #44 of the New York Islanders (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

The New York Islanders will convene for their first day of training camp on Sunday. Here are three quick storylines as they prepare for the 2020-21 season.

Along with the 24 other teams who entered the NHL bubbles in Toronto and Edmonton for the 2019-20 return to play, the New York Islanders will open training camp on Sunday, January 3.

While the Islanders roster hasn’t undergone any major overhauls, there will be at least a couple of new faces in camp, and some jobs to be won. So, here are three storylines as training camp approaches.

1. The Third Line: Pageau’s Linemates

J.G. Pageau joined the Islanders in late February and appeared in seven games for the Isles before the Coronavirus pandemic shut the NHL regular-season down. In those seven regular-season games, Pageau appeared most-often with Josh Bailey and Michael Dal Colle at his wings.

The trio saw some limited success, but ultimately Pageau spent most of his time in the playoffs centering Derick Brassard and Leo Komarov on the Islanders third line.

Brassard has since departed Long Island. Signing a one-year, $1 million contract with the Arizona Coyotes on December 30.

Meanwhile, Komarov did not play game one of the Eastern Conference Final against Tampa Bay. He got back in the Islanders lineup for game two, played a team-low 10:15 of ice-time in all situations, had a team-low CF% of 10.00 (-49.18 CF% Rel.) and was on the ice with Pageau and Andrew Ladd as the Lightning scored a final-minute goal to seal a 2-1 regulation win.

Uncle Leo still has two years left on his contract with an AAV of $3 million per season and a modified no-trade clause, according to Capfriendly. The deal has been among the most-maligned of Lou Lamoriello’s Islanders tenure.

Barry Trotz, known for running his four forward lines relatively equally, showed us in 2019-20 that he’d rather shorten his bench than give a number of his forwards crucial minutes, Komarov included.

So, the storyline here is simple: Who will be Pageau’s regular wingmen in 2020-21? Trotz has options, of course. We have yet to see what the Islanders full training camp roster will look like, but rookies Kieffer Bellows, Oliver Wahlstrom, or Otto Koivula could factor in. There’s also Michael Dal Colle and Ross Johnston, who have more NHL experience, or Dmytro Timashov, the RFA who the Islanders acquired in a trade with Detroit but have yet to sign to a contract.

New York Islanders, Semyon Varlamov (40) Mandatory Credit: James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports /

2. Semyon and Sorokin

Lou Lamoriello gave a few bits of information during his brief New Year’s Eve media availability. One of those bits was making us all privy to the four-man goalie group the Islanders will take to training camp with them: Semyon Varlamov, Ilya Sorokin, Cory Schneider, and Jakub Skarek.

It seems safe to assume the Islanders will start the regular season on January 14 with Varlamov and Sorokin as a 1A, 1B tandem, and Schneider taking a taxi squad role to be used as needed.

But, we saw a season ago that Barry Trotz wasn’t afraid to run with the hot hand when needed. The Islanders didn’t start either of their netminders in back-to-back games until nearly Christmas. When Thomas Greiss‘s performances continued to slide, Varly took on five consecutive starts between December 29 and January 6.

That’s not to say that Varlamov was without flaw in 19-20, because he had some rough patches too. But it seems crucial to the Islanders’ success that their goalies take turns in a steady rotation. When one needs a rest, or needs to regroup like Greiss did around the 2020 New Year, the other can be relied upon to get the nod and maintain a certain degree of consistency.

The question here is: can the overaged rookie Ilya Sorokin be relied upon in a situation where Barry Trotz feels the need to start him in three, four, or five games consecutively? His KHL numbers tell us he’s as good a candidate as any first-year NHL goalie to take on that challenge.

But, with no preseason games to exhibit how well the 25-year-old Russian’s skills immediately translate to the NHL’s smaller ice and quicker pace, this training camp will be crucial in giving us some of those answers.

Johnny Boychuk #55 of the New York Islanders (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

3. The Defense: Replacing Boychuk and Toews

This offseason saw many NHL teams victimized by the salary cap. The Islanders were not exempt from that group. They have yet to sign their most-talented forward in Mathew Barzal, and they traded RFA defenseman Devon Toews in October, both due to being squeezed by their cap situation.

Now, the Toews trade turned out to be quite polarizing among Islanders fans. I realize Toews wasn’t perfect, but anytime you have to trade a puck-moving, possession-driving, 26-year-old RFA defenseman because your cap situation simply won’t allow for you to sign him, it’s not a great look for your GM.

The other outgoing defenseman from the 2019-20 Islanders squad is Johnny Boychuk. Who, sadly, had to retire due to the eye injury he suffered shortly before the NHL shut the season down in March.

Another bit of news Lou gave us on New Year’s Eve was that of Andy Greene‘s signing. As he has been for so many years, Greene was steady when he joined the Islanders. He plays a simple game and is your prototypical no-frills defenseman who can be hard to notice on most nights because of the nature of his game.

That said, Greene is now 38-years-old, and in a condensed schedule should probably be looked at as a player to rotate in and out of the lineup, rather than to operate as an every-night fixture in it.

So who could platoon on the left side of the bottom defense pairing? Thomas Hickey is one option. The NHL vet kinda lost his job to Toews back in 2018-19. He spent all of 2019-20 with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, albeit he only played 14 games due to injury.

Because it would seem the right-side assignment is young Noah Dobson‘s job to lose, I’d say it’s likely that Hickey gets into the Islanders lineup in some capacity this season. It seems likely that Trotz would like to pair the younger Dobson with a steady veteran like Hickey or Greene. However, Hickey is not the only option.

Sebastian Aho is another potential option for that left side assignment. The 24-year-old Swede played 49 games in AHL Bridgeport in 2019-20 and registered 30 points to finish second on the team in that category. He hasn’t been able to crack the Islanders lineup since 2017-18, but after an AHL all-star selection, perhaps he could make the cut if invited to training camp.

These are three storylines that I look forward to having answered once training camp opens. I’m sure there are some interesting ones I missed too, so let us hear them in the comments section and on Twitter.

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