Islanders need more from these four

It’s been three days since the free agency window has opened and the New York Islanders stand as the line team to not have made a transaction. Isles GM Lou Lamoriello swung and missed on Johnny Gaudreau, this summer's prized free agent, and missed out on plenty of fallback options the longer Gaudreau took to make his decision. If the 2022-23 season started tomorrow and no further transactions come to fruition, the Islanders could be considered a bubble playoff team. However, if they want to really prove that the 2021-22 season was an anomaly, these four forwards need to take a step forward in the 2022-23 season. 

Anthony Beauvillier

Anthony Beauvillier was arguably the Islanders' most disappointing Islander forward in the 2021-22 season. In 75 games, Beauvillier scored 12 goals and 22 assists. The French-Canadian forward has been the topic of conversation to have a breakout season year after year but hasn’t quite delivered. He even went as far as to say that he knows he has to be better:

I feel like I kind of let my teammates down a little bit. I’m capable of doing much better things on the ice. I know that and everyone knows that.

Beauvillier has stayed relatively consistent in terms of points year after year averaging 31.5 points over six seasons. But the problem the 25-year-old forward faces is staying consistent in a single season, often scoring in bunches and then going missing for weeks on end. The former first-round draft pick in 2015 is capable of being a consistent 20-25 goal scorer collecting at least 50 points. By no means is that first-line material, but Beauvillier possesses the skill enough to keep pace with first-line talent so long as he figures out how to stay consistent game in and game out. 

A more consistent Beauvillier will surely put the trade speculation to rest, solidifying himself as part of the Islanders' core while also helping the Isles forward group improve. 

Kyle Palmieri

Kyle Palmieri seemingly played two different seasons last season. There was the one where he only scored a goal for the first 29 games and then there was the one where he couldn't stop scoring with 14 goals in his last 40 games(despite having a handful of goals called back). His second-half pace accrues to 29 goals in an 82-game season, exactly what the Islanders signed up for when they acquired him.

When Palmieri was finally healthy, the COVID issues were behind him, and when he returned from paternity leave, the consistency led to confidence and the 31-year-old winger looked like the former version of himself again:

Obviously, when things aren’t going well individually and as a team, it’s easy to kinda lose faith and not believe in yourself. I was definitely guilty of that.

Deployment will be interesting next season as Palmieri can slot in on the right side anywhere in the Islanders' top-9. He has plenty of time skating alongside all of Barzal, Nelson, and Pageau with most of his minutes coming with the latter. Whatever line he ends up on next season, it's safe to assume Palmieri will have a better season if he scores more consistently than he did when he had just one goal in his first 29 games.

Oliver Wahlstrom

The expectation for Oliver Wahlstrom in his sophomore season was that he would blossom into the kind of goal scorer the Islanders needed alongside Barzal for the last several seasons. With five goals in his first 10 games of the season, it looked like it might go exactly that way too. However, deployment became an issue as Wahlstrom lost Trotz's confidence to be on the ice in big-game situations, causing him to be benched for extended periods of time or even serve as a healthy scratch.

Wahlstrom expressed his appreciation for Trotz's tough love and took responsibility for his less-than-stellar season. Wahlstrom knows what he has to do in order to rebound for the 2022-23 season:

I think for me everything could be better. This summer, I’m gonna work on shooting, goal-scoring, skating, edges, my nutrition. Everything.

The former 11th overall draft pick seems to be following in the same footsteps as teammate Noah Dobson, drafted one pick after him in the 2018 NHL Draft. Dobson's second NHL stint was filled with growing pains before his breakout performance in the final year of his rookie contract. Wahlstrom could certainly replicate a breakout third-year performance under the tutelage of Lambert.

Wahlstrom's shot was NHL-ready as soon as he was drafted. He's the kind of sniper that has the prowess to score 30 goals. Expecting that after scoring 12 goals then 13 goals respectively is perhaps unfair, but if he solidifies himself in the top-6, you could expect at least 20.

Lamoriello will have to file transactions at some point. Dobson, Alexander Romanov, and Kieffer Bellows all need new contracts, so he can't literally do nothing. What we don't know is if he'll be upgrading the forward group. If not, the Islanders can be considered a playoff bubble team with the opportunity to be better than that if the previously mentioned take a significant step forward in 2022-23.