Islanders: Looking back at three shifted mid-season expectations

Kyle Palmieri

February expectation
Palmieri was supposed to be a 20-25 goal scorer through a full season. With a single goal in 29 games to open the year, he wasn't going to hit that number. But could he pace out to that number the rest of the way? Could Palmieri close out the season scoring between a 0.244 and 0.305 goals per game pace in whatever games remained?

What he did
Over the next 35 games, after I wrote my expectation piece, Palmieri scored ten goals and 22 points. That's a 0.628 point pace or 52 points over a full year. So that's good for Palmieri. But we're concerned with his goal-scoring. Because that's what Palmieri was brought in to do.

Ten goals over 35 games is a pace of 0.285 goals per game. That's 23 goals over a full NHL season. Now that's the Kyle Palmieri the Islanders thought they were getting when they signed him to a four-year deal.

Is it sustainable?
I'm glad to see Palmieri get to the level the Islanders wanted him to be at, eventually. But I can't say I'm not concerned going forward. That's two years now where Palmieri has shown issues.

In 2020-21 he converted shots to goals at 8.7% between the Islanders and Devils. Now in 21-22, he converted at a 9.6% clip. There's a real worry that we might see that Palmieri again.

We won't know he's past the results from 20-21 and 21-22 until we see it on the ice. So we go into 22-23 hopeful, but still a little worried.