Islanders Lou Lamoriello opens up more cap space with expansion draft

The Seattle Kraken has selected Jordan Eberle from the New York Islanders. The Isles top-line right-wing is gone and his $5.5 million salary cap goes with him to Seattle.

The means the New York Islanders now sit with $17.67 million in cap space. And that’s not considering Johnny Boychuk‘s salary that could be added through Long-Term Injury Reserve (LTIR). That brings the total up to $23.67 million in cap space.

New York Islanders Lou Lamoriello creates a bunch of cap space

Now to get there, the New York Islanders had to shed a few pieces with Nick Leddy and Jordan Eberle. That’s a top-four puck-moving defenseman as well as the top-scoring blueliner from 2020-21 and a top-line right-wing that had to move in order to create that cap space.

But, Lou Lamoriello now has cap space to add players to fill those gaps.

Sure, he has a few RFAs to sign, but the trio of Anthony Beauvillier, Adam Pelech, and Ilya Sorokin should only amount to around $15 million at most. That leaves another $8.67 million in space.

There’s still a lot of work to do for Lou Lamoriello but with the moves, he’s made over the last few days he’s now been able to create a bit of breathing room for this season and for a few more after that.

And look, Lou Lamoriello didn’t have to expose Jordan Eberle. He could have easily exposed Matt Martin and Cal Clutterbuck instead of Josh Bailey and Jordan Eberle. But he did so in order to create that $5.5 million in space.

Now, the next step for Lou Lamoriello and the New York Islanders is to fill those gaps and use that cap space to acquire equally talented (or better) players than the ones that left. The roster freeze is lifted tomorrow and free agency opens on July 28, so Lou will start to fill out the squad with that cap space very soon.