thats one hell of an overpaid bottom 6 lol

Who’s overpaid besides bailey and clutter?

Hopefully it will look better on the ice than it does on paper. Was really looking forward to seeing Barzal and Eberle getting a real scorer to play with, but maybe JGP will fill in there nicely. Faceoff god this season, so that should help

Yeah not really a fan of these lines. Hopefully it’s just to get the new guys acclimated. I would like to see:

Palmieri-barzal-eberle
Beau-Nelson-wahlstrom
Bailey-zajac-pageau

I’d personally switch Nelson with Pageau, but otherwise, I like it. Maybe Pageau is the elusive LW1 (who knows?), but in the mean time, I love that middle 6. That 2nd line is all scorers, and not many 3rd lines can compare to Bailey-Zajac-Palmieri. This team is ridiculously deep on offense. All we need now is a 7th D.

I'd agree with that, move Nelson to Barzals LW he's a big body in front of the net, move Pageu up to 2nd line C. Personally I think they should spend the remain 3M in cap space on a bottom 6 D. Greene won't last the entire playoffs, age is catching up with him and he doesn't have the legs to handle the speed of a team like Tampa.

Wouldn't read too much into the lines tonight. Palmieri and Zajac need to get adjusted to the system and no one expects that happen in one night. Keeping them together can allow them to use any chemistry they have and make things less daunting when thrown into a brand new team. That being said, I'd have liked to see Nelson on the first line with JGP centering Beau and Wahlstrom. Either way, I trust Barry will be able to use this squad to the best of their abilities in the coming games.

well zajac is still overpaid and so is cizikas and bailey. Josh bailey has not been good since 2016-17 and cizikas isa good 4th liner defensively but doesn't do much offensively. Thats fine for being on the 4th line but 3.35million is too much for that

Cizikas is a high end 3C - it’s not his fault trotz doesn’t see him that way. He drives play at both ends of the ice.

last year he was very good but based on this year hes been trash offensively.

Really? Trash? 7 goals and 7 assists on 4th line minutes while being the top penalty killing forward is not trash. Don't really get this criticism at all.

so next year when he is a UFA you going to give him more money? he is worth the jesper fast contract at a maximum.

Cizikas is a homegrown guy that I think would take a pay cut to stay with the team. Isles have a lot of important RFAs that need new contracts this year. There's a lot of false equivalency in your arguments implying that him not getting more money makes him "trash". You clearly don't watch enough Islanders games if you don't know how important he is to the team.

Cizikas provided 4-4.5 mill worth of value in 18-19 and 19-20. With his defensive ability, pk and on pace for 14 goals, he’s definitely worth 3.35 mill. He’s not providing excess value, but he is not overpaid. He’ll probably sign for 2.5 mill x 3-4 years this offseason.