Islanders: Reaction To Lou Lamoriello’s Roster Quote

Lou Lamoriello is hard to follow. We’ve seen that through three seasons so far with the New York Islanders and a great example of it is just this past year with free agency. The Islanders waited until the last possible second to announce signings and kept things under the radar.

Heck, for some signings we still don’t know what the actual value of the contracts are. The moral of the story, Lou Lamoriello is sneaky.

So yesterday, when he said to the media that the roster for opening night should be obvious I found that surprising.

I think I know what the 12 forwards and six defensemen are going to be. I would imagine that your lineup on opening night is going to be something like this:

Lee – Barzal – Palmieri/Wahlstrom

Beauvillier – Nelson – Bailey

Parise – Pageau – Wahlstrom/Palmieri

Martin – Cizikas – Clutterbuck

Pelech – Pulock

Chara – Mayfield/Dobson

Greene – Dobson/Mayfield

I would say that I’m 99 percent confident that those are the 18 players that will be the starters for the New York Islanders. I can’t say 100 percent because of how deceiving Lou has been since he’s been here.

I don’t mean deceiving in a negative connotation, I mean it in a he’ll keep you on your toes kind of a thing. In Lou’s head does he think Leo Komarov (who the Islanders absolutely love) is a third-line player and Oliver Wahlstrom is the healthy scratch?

I personally can’t justify that in my head but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a world where Lou or Barry Trotz could make the case for it. I hope that they feel the same way that I do, that Wahlstrom’s ceiling is too high to keep out of the lineup but who knows.

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Maybe I should give Lou the benefit of the doubt and not overthink it, but when has he ever been so upfront about his plans? Man, he’s one confusing guy.