Fans try to make sense of the NY Islanders sudden souring on Matthew Maggio

Matthew Maggio’s time with the New York Islanders organization came to a surprisingly quiet end this summer, and Up the Turnpike’s Mitch Andersen is still trying to figure out exactly what went wrong.

The Islanders elected not to give the former fifth-round pick a qualifying offer, allowing Maggio to become an unrestricted free agent. This week, he signed to continue his career in the KHL.

But Andersen believes the story likely began before the offseason.

“It probably even starts before that, where he gets healthy scratched near the end of the season and even into the playoffs, and you’re like, ‘Oh, what’s going on here?’” Andersen said. “This guy should not be healthy scratched.”

Andersen stressed that the decision wasn’t necessarily an indictment of Bridgeport head coach Rocky Thompson. Instead, it suggested there may have been something happening behind the scenes or within Maggio’s game that wasn’t obvious from the outside.

“He clearly knew what he was doing,” Andersen said of Thompson. “It’s not calling out Rocky. It’s, there’s something going on here. He’s not performing at the rate that they wanted him to perform, I assume.”

That’s what makes Maggio’s departure so puzzling.

After scoring 111 points in 66 games for the Windsor Spitfires during his final OHL season, Maggio experienced the normal ups and downs expected from a fifth-round prospect adjusting to professional hockey.

But Andersen felt Maggio was finally beginning to rediscover the trajectory that once made him one of the Islanders’ more intriguing prospects.

“He was finally catching up to where he was,” Andersen said. “And now he’s gone.”

For a player who once appeared to be trending toward a legitimate NHL opportunity, the sudden sequence of healthy scratches, no qualifying offer and a move to the KHL leaves Andersen with more questions than answers.

“It’s still quite strange to me.”

It's strange to us as well.

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