A little more than a week into this offseason, the Islanders can already claim with some credibility that this has been their best offseason since 2018 and their best under head coach Lou Lamoriello.
After all, 2018 was a much better year in retrospect than when John Tavares turned down the Islanders for a seven-year, $77 million contract with the Maple Leafs. In hindsight, Lamoriello handled that departure as well as he could, signing Robin Lehner, trading Matt Martin, hiring future Jack Adams Award winner Barry Trotz and drafting Noah Dobson to quickly develop into a contender in the Eastern Conference.
Meanwhile, Tavares has produced at a high level but only won one playoff series with the Leafs, and while he may have been able to push the Islanders’ ceiling a bit more between 2018 and 2021 if he’d stayed with the team, it’s hard to view his time in Toronto as a success.
In hindsight, 2018 seems like the best offseason of Lamoriello’s tenure, but the overall trend seems to be getting worse over time.
