Islanders Lou Lamoriello surprisingly wins GM of the Year again

For the second year in a row New York Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello has won the GM of the Year award. He’s also the only GM to win it in back-to-back years. (To be fair the award has only been around since 2010).

But he’s the first one to do.

When Lou was named for the award I wrote that Florida’s Bill Zito will likely win the award. So I’m surprised that Lou won it, even though I conceded that Lou could still pull out a win here.

New York Islanders Lou Lamoriello wins GM of the Year, again

Remember, this award is voted on after the second round of the playoffs. It’s not voted on in the regular season like every other award. So playoff results matter. That’s clearly what helped Lou here.

The one big move he made – trading a first and two prospects to New Jersey for Kyle Palmieri and Travis Zajac – didn’t initially work. Neither had an impact in the regular season. But in the playoffs, both have stepped up.

Kyle Palmieri leads the team in scoring with seven goals while Travis Zajac has been a good depth piece for the Islanders as they powered their way to back-to-back semi-finals.

Lou hasn’t done much else this year, not that he’s had to. This team didn’t need much to get to where they were last season. When Lou won his first GM of the Year award.

Did Lou deserve the award? I’m not entirely sure about that. I love what Lou Lamoriello has done with the New York Islanders. But his moves this year weren’t that incredible and it didn’t look like it was going to work out in the regular season.

I honestly didn’t think Lou Lamoriello would win the award based on how his team played in a tournament when they were 12th best during the regular season. Considering Montreal is making a similar and perhaps more impressive run after a pretty large retool this offseason, and that Florida had a widely impressive regular season.

And look, I’m not upset Lou and specifically, the New York Islanders won the award (Lou made sure to note that this was an organizational award in his acceptance speech). After being irrelevant for so long I’m glowing that the Islanders are making deep runs and winning awards.