What about Pulock + Beauvillier for Laine and a mid pick?

The islanders are not trading Toews. Why would we trade 2 of our best defenseman and our 2nd best D prospect. Laine is overrated

Mayfield is a 3rd pairing Dman and toews does all the heavy lifting

Nah Laine is overrated

Kings will take the cap dump for Toews, but they aren't giving a third for taking on Boychuk's contract.

Toews is legitimately good though. Lol.

I’d say take the pick off the table from Winnipeg and change out Pulock for Dobson. Higher ceiling than Pulock, though I’ll admit he’s not there quite yet.

You would trade Dobson and beauvillier for Laine?

Fans are overreacting because toews has had a rough playoff run - he has a over 100 game sample size of being borderline elite 5v5. 0 chance he gets traded

hes had jast a tough 2020 in general. bad in the playoffs, worse in jan feb march

That’s not true. Overall toews was our best offensive defenseman and it’s not even close. Leddy was being held back by Boychuk (bottom 5 NHL D) and mayfield had a brutal year.

Well he didnt lead their defenseman in points. had a good corsi, but could chalk that up to him being the only defenseman on the team with over half his zone starts in the offensive zone and leading all defenseman in power play time. Hes also not great defensively

Toews led all isles D in expected goals for (xgf%) and expected goals against per 60 min (XGA) . With pelech out of the lineup , toews had the best defensive impact. Pulock not far behind. Toews did struggle on the powerplay, but it has more to due with the isles strategy and lack of shooting talent.



Mayfield is average defensively, but he’s a negative offensively and he really hurt the team on the penalty kill (he’s one of the worst pkers in the league). Boychuk is also one of the worst pkers in the league. So there’s part of the reason why isles went through a slump after pelech went down. Toews and pulock singlehandedly kept the isles above water.

Yeah, though I tend to think a lot higher of Wilde than most Isles fans. I see Wilde as a mid pairing PP specialist and he’d slot in just right behind Pulock. My only problem with a Dobson and Beau for Laine trade is the Isles take too much cap back in that trade.

Lou wouldn’t include Dobson in the Mark stone trade, he’s not getting traded for Laine. I would have actually traded him for stone, he’s one of like 3-4 wingers in the league I would trade Dobson for. Dobson will likely reach his ceiling as a number 1 D, he should be the only untouchable prospect. I’d trade sorokin before I would trade Dobson.

Beau would have 30 goals on another team. He’s our only top 6 winger under 25 and he’s fast, has a great shot and he’s above average defensively

Laine is slow, terrible defensively , and can’t generate his own offense. teams have figured him out a bit, and there was a recent article on how Laine benefits from playing with multiple stars and he actually doesn’t drive play at all.

The Laine Trade is A joke rather have Ethers 1 for 1 for Pulock

Hey hey hey , Sorokin going to be the next Bobrovsky, he has almost enough skill potential as Dobson

#1 D > goaltending. I’m not saying to trade sorokin, but I’d trade him before I give up Dobson.

All very fair. But the Isles need to give Barzal some kind of weapon. Tampa’s exposing how weak our top line is. If not Laine, who would you have in mind? We could probably get Ehlers for less, or Gaudreau or Nylander for about this amount. Say switch the offer to Wahlstrom+Wilde+middling prospect or pick?

I’ve been saying this for a while , but beau and lee should switch. Lee has had two shifts with Nelson at 5v5 during the playoffs (1 vs FLA, 1 vs WSH) and lee scored both times. I believe beau has had 3 shifts with barzal, two of those times he’s scored. It’s really a no brainer at this point. It doesn’t matter if the 2nd line gets slower , they dump and chase anyways. Trotz only lets barzal carry the puck in.

No interest in gaudreau, wouldn’t want to pay the price to acquire him. Wouldn’t be a good fit on the islanders and there’s no chance trotz would put him with barzal. I do like ehlers a lot. That would be my #1 choice. Great in transition , solid defensively. I’d give up pulock 1 for 1 and sign a RD such as DeMelo.

Most likely , the improvement will have to come internally. I’m so tired of watching mayfield on the 2nd pairing, giving toews a competent D partner like Dobson will make the isles a more dangerous team. The biggest problem with the powerplay is lack of shooting talent, they play keep away with the puck because there’s usually at most 1 guy on each unit who can cleanly beat the goalie. The isles don’t need wahlstrom to be a top line winger next season (although he could surprise and break out) - he just has to help out on the powerplay and chip in 15-20 goals all together.

Next season PP1:
Toews-barzal-wahlstrom-nelson-lee
Wahlstrom in the ovi spot, Nelson opposite side

PP2 : Dobson-pulock-beau-bailey-eberle
Pulock in the ovi spot, beau on the opposite side

I’d love it for things to turn out this way, but here’s how I see it. We have a wealth of veteran middle six depth scorers. Eberle, Nelson, Beauvillier, Bailey, Pageau and Lee is a murderer’s row of a Middle 6. But that’s just it: none of them really belong on a 1st line, except maybe Beauvillier, but I don’t think he’s there juuust yet. And another problem is that these guys are all aging and the fatigue problems we saw this playoffs won’t get any better in future years.

So I think the best thing the Isles can do is to try to win a Cup either next year or the year after. Add a legitimate 1st line scorer to the Barzal line, let any of those middle 6 guys I mentioned play with him until Wahlstrom is ready to be Barzal’s Ovi (he’s shown last year he can play Trotz hockey with his possession stats) in the mean time. If that means paying a king’s ransom for Gaudreau, Ehlers or Nylander, so be it. Or better yet, we shed a few picks to cap dump Boychuk, trade Leddy for a 2nd, LTIR Ladd and try to sign Taylor Hall or Mike Hoffman. We’re in a very rare situation where we can sign top end UFAs without having to risk giving them an albatross 7 year deal; either of them will accept a 3 year deal and try to cash in once the salary cap ceiling goes up again. If they put us over the hump, awesome. If not, we trade them for a handsome return on the TDL of their contract year, and replenish our increasingly sparse prospect system.

Pageau and maybe Bailey you can call middle 6. Lee and eberle absolutely not, lee is being misused on barzal’s line and eberle is just a streaky player. Go look at their advanced metrics - on any other team lee and eberle have 5-8 more goals. Nelson is pretty much a high end 2C at this point. 30 G pace 65 points. Beauvillier is just entering his prime, I do think he’ll solidify himself as a top line wing next season.

Disagree on the window, obviously anything can happen but getting desperate and overpaying will likely end up being a terrible move -milbury-esque. Like when half the fanbase wanted to trade barzal and pulock for duchene. That being said, I would trade pulock for ehlers and I guess nylander although I’d prefer ehlers. Toews should be pretty much untouchable despite his playoff performance, might be the most underrated player in the league in how he quietly dominates.

I want nothing to do with Hoffman , he’s the next ladd and he’ll definitely get 5 years. The thing will Hoffman is he can score 30 goals (he won’t with the isles because of the system) but he’s so bad in every other aspect of the game that it’s not even worth signing him. He’s not a guy that gets you closer to winning a cup. I have no doubt the isles fanbase would turn on him after 2 months and call him a 3rd liner. I wouldn’t be opposed to hall if we can afford him, but how he performed in Arizona is a good indicator of how he’d do in NY. His numbers took a hit playing in a defensive minded system, just like lee and eberle, the players who everyone sh*ts on because they don’t score as much now because trotz system stifles offense.

how is that possibly something you could want, consider the isles needs and the fits

Yes Laine has a higher potential to score more goals than Ethers but Laine is not good defensively and he relies on his teamates to score, he can not drive his on line by himself. Laine would falter in a Barry Trotz system. Ethers is a really good 2 way player.

Laine wouldn't have to drive a line, Barzal just needs someone who can score and Laine does it so effortlessly... as for him not being good defensively, neither was Ovechkin before Trotz took over and now Ovechkin is a solid back checker and a legitimately physical force. Ehlers is good, but he's concerningly similar to Eberle. The isles just need someone who can put the puck in the net, and while Ehlers can hes never hit 30 and quite possibly would not have this season whereas Laine scored 30 every year of his career and would have this year

Lol I remember the days of “you need to at least give us Barzal and Pulock for our sh*tty pending UFA”. Good times, good times.

I agree that Toews is pretty much untouchable, but I’d say the same about Pulock. The reason I’d prefer to move Beauvillier is because he’ll need a new contract next offseason, and if he’s entering his prime like you say he is, we won’t have the cap space for him. We can barely afford to keep our current RFAs and Pelech will rightly demand a more urgent payday than Beauvillier. Also, we don’t know if this playoff performance he put up this offseason is him breaking out or him just getting hot at the right time.