Team: 2020-21 New York Islanders

Initial Creation Date: Mar. 12, 2021

Published: Mar. 12, 2021

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

This is a scary time, I can’t lie. Lee was having a resurgent season, looked great next to Barzal and was helping to fix the power play. Hopefully he’s back sooner than we’re all expecting.

In his absence, we’ll have to piece things together. The bottom-6 will remain pretty much untouched, which is good. Komarov and Czarnik can rotate at 3LW if one starts to falter. Not a big fan of Leo, but he hasn’t been a detractor lately, which is fine. We’ll have to make do until the captain is back.

The top 6 is a little more tricky, but there are some silver linings. Islanders fans have wanted to see Beauvillier back with Barzal for years and I think we’ll finally get to see it again. Bailey would also move up as he and Barzal have played with each other a bit more this season. We’re definitely gonna lose a little bit with that line, probably on both sides of the puck, but we don’t have much of a choice. Hopefully they can reestablish some chemistry. Eberle meanwhile gets reunited with Nelson and Dal Colle. They played pretty well together when Beauvillier was hurt, so while we’re still figuring out how to organize everything, hopefully their familiarity will sustain us for a bit.

I’ve seen some people say we replace Lee with Ladd at 1LW, which is intriguing but I can’t see us throwing an injury prone 34 year old to the wolves like that. However if we eased him into the lineup and liked what we saw, I would not be opposed to giving him a look up there. I think these lines are most realistic going forward, but obviously they’re subject to change, as Trotz likes to do when there are holes in the lineup.