Islanders have no GM but plenty of excitement after winning the NHL Draft's No. 1 pick

New York Times

06-05-2025

It was perfect. Sixteen hockey executives in little Zoom rectangles on the ESPN screen at 7 p.m. on Monday — 15 general managers and one Miracle on Ice/four-time Stanley Cup winner.
Ken Morrow, who has been an Islander since he shed his U.S. hockey jersey in February of 1980 — first for a decade as a player and now for three-plus decades as head of scouting — represented the Isles for the NHL Draft Lottery. With Lou Lamoriello relieved of duties two weeks ago as president and GM and no one yet named to replace him, Morrow was the man on the scene.
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And, armed with about the same win probability as the team of Americans had in 1980 against the USSR, Morrow watched the ping-pong balls pop up in the Isles' favor.
They won it!
Now, uh … Does anyone want to make this pick?
The Islanders in the post-dynasty era have been, shall we say, erratic. Too many cheap (or broke) owners, too many lost seasons, too many arena shenanigans. Current principal owner Scott Malkin and co-owners Jon Ledecky and John Collins have done a lot to change that. From hiring Lamoriello and Barry Trotz to opening UBS Arena and now firing Lamoriello, the Islanders are trying to be taken seriously in a league that often looks at them as an afterthought.
In fact, just a few hours before the lottery luck went down, New York Governor Kathy Hochul sent a letter to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman expressing her unhappiness with the league's decision to turn next season's All-Star weekend — awarded to UBS Arena and the Isles — into an Olympic kickoff instead, denying the Islanders a chance to have the sort of All-Star festivities that loads of other teams with new buildings get.
Just another instance of sand being kicked in the face of the Islanders. Or so we thought.
If the Islanders had just another down year in 2024-25, if they were only in need of a quick retool this offseason, winning this lottery would have set up one of the great moments of kismet in NHL history: The Long Island team drafting Long Island kid James Hagens, the Boston College freshman who could be the first player from the area drafted in the top three.
That could still happen, but there are about a dozen steps the Islanders need to take before they kick off the draft on June 27. The first, of course, is finding a GM to actually make that pick, whether it's Hagens, Scott Wheeler and Corey Pronman's consensus top prospect Matthew Schaefer, or another top talent.
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The search for a new top executive has been underway for a couple weeks and could wrap up sooner rather than later. It could also generate some renewed interest after the lottery results on Monday. Whether it's Ken Holland, Marc Bergevin, Jarmo Kekäläinen or another candidate, this job suddenly has a very big check mark in the 'pros' column.
There are more than a few 'cons,' though. Lamoriello leaves behind a relatively stagnant roster littered with immovable contracts, there's a coach in Patrick Roy who's been on the job for a year and a half but may not be the right coach going forward and that nice arena isn't exactly filled to the brim after four mediocre seasons and just five playoff games there.
There's also the matter of staffing. Part of the reason the Islanders haven't been considered a big-league franchise is Lamoriello has run a very tight ship — the Islanders have one of the smallest front offices in the league. It was that way out of necessity when Garth Snow ran the team for 11 years and by design when Lamoriello came in.
Now, the owners understand to be taken seriously means you need to spend on all aspects of the organization. After a couple of years of inactivity, Malkin acted decisively last month to move on from Lamoriello and start the next phase of the franchise.
That next phase got a big boost from the ping-pong balls on Monday. The last time the Islanders won the lottery was 2009, when they held onto the No. 1 pick and selected John Tavares.
Even that transformative moment in team history has morphed into something less than pleasant for the Islanders. In 2018, the same year Malkin hired Lamoriello, Tavares took his talents to Toronto after a decade of carrying the franchise on the Island. The betrayal was a deep, deep wound — we're seven years past that offseason, with two semifinal runs by the Islanders since then, and Tavares still gets lustily booed at UBS Arena every time he touches the puck.
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But that's part of the Islanders fan experience. It's why Monday night was such a bizarre, enjoyable surprise, with Morrow reacting with real joy in a situation he probably never thought he'd be in. He surely didn't think a couple weeks ago he'd be sitting in for Lamoriello on a Zoomful of GMs, watching the balls pop up in just the right order.
WE KNEW IT WAS GONNA BE A GOOD NIGHT WHEN THIS GUY SHOWED UP. pic.twitter.com/SU0gZgf3mY
— New York Islanders (@NYIslanders) May 5, 2025
The Islanders are easy to dismiss. They've been pretty blah for four straight seasons. The game had passed Lamoriello by. Their most notable moment in 2024-25 was being on the receiving end of Alex Ovechkin's 895th career goal. They got an All-Star Game and the league turned it into an Olympic watch party. It's all so very Islanders.
But things changed a bit on Monday. They don't have a GM and they need to overhaul their hockey operations, but they've got that No. 1 pick and there's eyes on the Islanders now, wondering what they'll do next.
It's an opportunity. It's exciting. It's the Islanders.
No, really.