There was nowhere to go but up.
For the first time in years, the New York Islanders have some consensus top level talent in the prospect pool pipeline and it was recognized in Scott Wheeler's Prospect Pool rankings with the team moving up seven spots to No. 25 after being ranked last (32nd) in the NHL last season.
Wheeler, an NHL Draft and Prospect writer for The Athletic, defines a prospect as a skater that is under 23-years-old and not an established full-time NHL player. That means 20-year-old defenseman Isaiah George was eligible for the list. For goaltenders, the age-limit is set at 25 and the player cannot be in the team's regular two-goaltender rotation.
Here is Wheeler's summary of the Islanders: After four consecutive years without a first-rounder, theIslanders pool ranked last in the league in last year’s project. After hanging onto their 2024 first-rounder and picking twice in the second round, though, it got a much-needed boost. Their group is still one of the weaker collections of young talent in the league, but the addition of Cole Eiserman plus some positive development within has helped lift them out of the bottom of the barrel.
Eiserman, the team's first 1st round pick since 2019, is ranked as the top prospect in the organization. Wheeler acknowledges some of the reservations about his two-way play and make-up, but he has shooting skills that you simply can't teach. If he continues to round-out his game at Boston University and cleans up his game, he'll be on the fast-track to Long Island in a few years.
The second spot in Wheeler's rankings may come as a surprise. It's not Isaiah George (4th) or Danny Nelson (5th). The place behind Eiserman goes to defenseman Jesse Pulkkinen. The 2024 second-round pick was the top 'over-ager' in the draft after not being selected in 2023. The 20-year-old is 6-foot-6, 220 pounds, and getting positive results for JYP, a team in Liiga, Finland's top league. Wheeler still categorizes him as "raw," but his unique size and skill sets shot him up the rankings because of the potential package he could achieve over the next few years.
The third spot in the rankings is towering 19-year-old Swedish goaltender Marcus Gidlöf. Standing at 6-foot-6, Gildof was drafted in the 4th round (147th overall) by the Islanders in the 2024 NHL Draft after playing in Sweden's J20 last year, and posting 923 SV% while allowing 2.22 goals per game. He performed well in two games for Sweden in the most recent World Juniors Tournament and has. a1.43 GAA in seven games this season. Ilya Sorokin has seven-years to go on his contract, but the Islanders are long overdue in developing a young goaltender to play a big role in the NHL.
Rounding out the Top-5, Wheeler acknowledges that the ease of which George made the jump to the NHL surprised him and a number of other scouts that watched him with the London Knights of the OHL last season. There was the expectation that he could develop into a NHL defenseman, but few expected it to happen this fast after being fourth on his junior's team in TOI for blueliners.
Nelson, the Notre Dame sophomore coming off an impressive World Juniors, is ranked fifth. Interestingly, the 2023 second-round pick was ranked ahead of Eiserman in Cory Pronman's recent rankings of all Under-23 prospects earlier this week, but Wheeler has him fifth in the Isles' organization. Wheeler sees him as a future NHL center but sees his ceiling as a bottom-six forward rather than the second-line center the Islanders hope he can develop into.
Here is how the rest of the rankings eneded up: 6th - D Calle Odelius, 7th - Quinn Finley, 8th - William Dufour, 9th - Kamil Bednarik, 10h - Cameron Berg, 11tth - Xavier Veilleux, 12th - Matthew Maggio, and 13th - Zachary Schulz.