The New York Islanders have not had a smooth ride over the past 10 years, but one thing about Jon Ledecky and Scott Malkin is hard to knock: they have given the franchise what it needs to compete.
Since Malkin, Ledecky and Dewey Shay took majority control, the on-ice results have bounced around. There have been playoff bursts that got the fan base buzzing, early exits that cut those runs short, coaching changes and a roster that got older without delivering the Stanley Cup everybody was chasing. But even with all of that, the Islanders have not been starved of support from the top.
That matters when you remember where this franchise came from.
For years, the Islanders were stuck trying to function in circumstances that put them behind the rest of the league. Nassau Coliseum was aging, ownership was unstable, arena plans kept falling apart and the team never had the revenue base of a true first-class NHL operation.
That picture changed under Malkin and Ledecky.
Their biggest and most obvious win was UBS Arena, which opened in 2021 and finally gave the Islanders a permanent modern home after five seasons at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, a setup that never quite fit. The ownership group also put money into the Northwell Health Ice Center, kept the team regularly near the salary-cap ceiling and backed management with the resources needed to try to win.
“There’s only one priority: to win a Stanley Cup for the fans,” Ledecky told Newsday. “We will always provide the resources to allow management to put us in a position to win the Stanley Cup.”
Of course, money and support only go so far. The Islanders still have to hire the right people and make the right calls.
They’re starting a new stretch now with general manager Mathieu Darche, head coach Pete DeBoer and president of business operations Kelly Cheeseman, all of whom pointed to ownership’s commitment as part of the appeal of joining the organization.
What comes next will be judged by whether the Islanders can put together real sustained success and finally end a championship drought that goes back to 1983.
But whatever happens from here, the franchise is no longer being dragged down by its building, its finances or its ownership’s willingness to invest. For Islanders fans who lived through the worst of it, that is no small thing.
In Other News...
Maple Leafs Just Raised An Uncomfortable Matias Maccelli Question
Matias Maccelli arrives on Long Island carrying the kind of unanswered question that tends to follow a player from stop to stop. His time with the Maple Leafs never really settled into a shape, and that matters now because the Islanders are looking at a skilled forward who has spent too much time on the margins instead of in a role that lets him show what he can do.
For the Islanders, the appeal is obvious: there is value in seeing whether a player with Maccellis ability can become more than a fit-and-starts option when given steadier usage. The next step is whether that opportunity turns into something real, because his track record suggests the issue was not talent so much as the absence of a consistent place to use it. [Read more 🡒]
Penguins Just Made The Islanders' Next Roster Decisions More Expensive
The Penguins decision to lock up Ville Koivunen on an eight-year, $32 million contract is the kind of move that does not just shape one roster, it can ripple across a division. Koivunen has only 47 NHL games on his rsum and modest scoring numbers so far, but the structure of the deal signals how aggressively Pittsburgh is willing to pay for a young player before his track record gets much longer.
For the Islanders, the timing is worth noting because Emil Heineman and Simon Holmstrom are both heading toward restricted free agency in the future. Their situations are not identical, and nothing is decided yet, but contracts like Koivunens can help set the market for players in that age and experience range. For New York, the bigger question is whether keeping those forwards in the fold gets a little pricier as the league keeps finding new ways to reward upside. [Read more 🡒]