Islanders Have Tried To Trade Thomas Hickey

According to Elliotte Friedman, the Islanders have tried to trade Thomas Hickey with a sweetener in order to get his contract off the books.

For six straight seasons, Thomas Hickey was a regular part of the Islanders defensive core from 2013-2018. After signing an extension in July of 2018, it appeared he would continue to be a part of this team’s future.

Unfortunately, that has changed over the past two seasons. In 2018-2019, he started with the Islanders, albeit very slowly, and unfortunately suffered an injury. He was replaced by Devon Toews and the Islanders never looked back.

He was Wally Pipp’d. Hickey played just 14 games at the AHL level last season, and no NHL games, due to injury and the loss of his brother. He’s been through a lot both professionally and personally over the past two years, and I genuinely feel for him.

According to Elliotte Friedman, the Islanders have tried to trade Hickey along with a sweetener to get his contract off the books. Hickey has this year and next year at a $2.5 million cap hit with all of his signing bonuses paid out already.

That does sound movable, but up until this point Lou Lamoriello hasn’t been able to get anything done with Hickey. In all likelihood, he will likely be a Taxi Squad player for the Isles in 2021.

There’s not much room for him down in Bridgeport and the Islanders top-six d-men are already filled out with Pelech – Pulock, Leddy – Mayfield, Greene – Dobson as the pairs, and the assumption is Sebastian Aho will be the seventh d-man.

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With just a week until the regular season starts I’d imagine this idea has been put on hold. Right now the focus has to be on Mathew Barzal and figuring out who is going to LTIR and when. It stinks but we might be close to the end of Thomas Hickey in the NHL.