Metro rival trade serves as painful reminder of NY Islanders deadline folly

New York Islanders fans have tried to move on from last season’s trade deadline. The problem is the rest of the NHL keeps giving them reasons not to.

Earlier this week, the New Jersey Devils and new general manager Sunny Mehta acquired 24-year-old forward Luke Evangelista for Colorado’s 2028 first-round pick and a second-round pick. Given Colorado’s annual place among the league’s best teams, that first-rounder is widely expected to fall late in the round.

Evangelista is coming off a 56-point season, carries a $3 million cap hit and is entering his prime.

Now compare that with what Mathieu Darche gave up for Brayden Schenn.

The Islanders traded Jonathan Drouin, prospect Marcus Gidlöf, the No. 29 pick in the first round and a third-round pick for Schenn, who is 35, carries a $6.5 million cap hit and had 39 points last season.

That is difficult to defend from an asset-management perspective.

The Isles gave up a forward they signed in free agency, a legitimate prospect and two draft picks, including a first-rounder, for an older, more expensive player with less production. Meanwhile, a division rival just used a comparable package of picks to land a younger, cheaper forward who scored 17 more points.

Most people did not need hindsight to question the Schenn trade. But hindsight is making it look worse.

There is another layer to the Devils comparison, too.

New Jersey created flexibility by moving Ondrej Palat and his $6 million cap hit in February. That cap space helped position the Devils to make another aggressive move.

Darche, meanwhile, has shown little indication that he plans to do anything similar with underperforming contracts on the Islanders’ roster. If those players remain unproductive, the Isles are effectively choosing to live with the cap inefficiency for this season rather than use assets or creativity to improve the roster around them.

That is what makes the frustration linger. The issue is not simply that the Islanders overpaid once. It is that every time another team turns similar assets into younger, cheaper and more productive talent, it provides another comparison point.

And lately, those comparisons have not been kind to Darche.

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