NY Islanders could make one 2025 draft trade fans won’t forgive

The New York Islanders head into the 2025 NHL Draft with the luck of the draw tuck underneath their arm. The Isles won the NHL Draft Lottery, landing them the coveted first-overall pick.

At this point, everyone expects the Islanders to make good on the pick and select the team’s next top prospect.

Whether that selection happens to be Matthew Schaefer, Michael Misa or James Hagens is sort of beside the point.

But there’s one move the Islanders could make that would sour the club’s fanbase for a generation: Trading the first-overall pick.

Now, let’s pause for a second. The forgivable or unforgivable part of that trade is based on the return for the pick.

Hypothetically speaking, if the return was insane, the Isles’ fanbase would applaud the trade. But a return short of Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews for the first-overall pick would be seen as a betrayal by Islanders’ fans.

I’m assuming, of course, that the trade would involve moving the pick to a team in the middle of the first round, like around the 10th to 15th picks. The return would be tough to justify missing the opportunity of taking a franchise player.

Things could get even worse if that first-overall pick, whoever it happens to be, turns out to be a superstar in the NHL. Imagine Schaefer winning multiple Norris Trophies or Misa stocking up on Hart Trophies.

That sort of situation would leave New York Islanders’ fans feeling cheated and deceived.

New York Islanders won’t be trading first-overall pick

Isles’ GM Mathieu Darche has been adamant about holding on to the first-overall pick. In a manner of speaking, it’s a question of optics. If the Islanders move the pick, fans could feel like they’re getting the old switcharoo.

But if the Isles hold on to it, that first-overall selection would represent a new hope for the franchise moving forward.

There’s something else to that first-overall pick. Teams that generally get a No. 1 pick do so after a disastrous season or a tanking/rebuilding phase. The 2015 Buffalo Sabres and 2016 Toronto Maple Leafs come to mind.

Only this time, the Islanders didn’t tank. They genuinely tried to make the playoffs, playing hard down to the last week of the season.

The No. 1 selection was seen as more of a boon, a windfall than earned from years of frustration and suffering.

While it may take a couple of seasons for that first-overall selection to hit the NHL, that star rookie will bring a renewed feeling of hope for a fanbase that’s been through quite a bit.

For the sake of Islanders fans’ blood pressure and mental health, let’s hope the club keeps the pick.