The Islanders keep using one word, and they’re making it clear they want everyone else to use it too.
Transition.
Not rebuild.
That distinction is doing a lot of work right now. A rebuild tells people to brace for the long haul.
Transition asks for faith that the roster can change shape without being ripped apart, that Mathieu Darche can steer the organization forward, that Pete DeBoer can get more out of the group already in place, and that the younger wave can start forcing its way into real roles. It also asks belief that the cap space coming down the road will eventually matter.
Most of all, it asks people to buy into the idea that Matthew Schaefer has already changed the clock.
That’s a lot to put on a player who is now 19, after turning 19 on Friday. But Schaefer has made that kind of talk unavoidable after walking into the NHL, scoring 23 goals, finishing with 59 points and winning the Calder Trophy unanimously.
Once a franchise gets a player like that, patience becomes a tougher sell. If the Islanders were just an older team coming off back-to-back playoff misses, the plan would be obvious: move veterans, stockpile picks, get younger, endure the pain.
Schaefer complicates everything. He gives the organization a player teams spend years trying to find, and that changes how quickly people want results.
Darche has been blunt about the direction he wants. He has talked repeatedly about building a team that can stay competitive instead of patching holes every summer, and assistant general manager Evan Gold has used the word transition as well. The Post’s Ethan Sears has pointed out that the Islanders need to follow that path, especially with 10 players entering camp on expiring contracts and the possibility of roughly $40 million in cap space opening up next summer.
That gives the Islanders real flexibility for the first time in a while. They can actually decide what the next version of the roster should be.
Darche has already put money into development, analytics and the AHL operation because one elite young player is not enough by himself. The challenge now is making sure Schaefer’s rapid rise doesn’t push the organization into shortcuts. Darche put it plainly: “To be a sustainable playoff team you can’t just patch every year and just bring one player here, one player there, you have to build it,” Darche said.
“But a good thing is, we have some solid veterans that can keep us relevant, keep us fighting for the playoffs as we incorporate and we always need to mix up both. You can’t win with only young guys, you can’t win with only older guys, so that’s the transitional part that he’s talking about.”
And then there’s the Schaefer buzz, which keeps getting louder.
Scott Wheeler of The Athletic bumped the conversation up another level by placing Schaefer in Tier 1B of his under-23 rankings and describing the projection in terms that amount to “future-best-D-in-the-world.”
Wheeler said only Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes, Zach Werenski and Rasmus Dahlin are in Tier 1 among defensemen in his broader player tiers. He also noted that one NHL scout believed Schaefer should have been slotted even higher. Wheeler called that level of confidence in a 19-year-old defenseman “practically unheard of.”
That’s where the conversation is now. A year ago, the Islanders were hoping the No. 1 pick could become their franchise defenseman. Now the talk is whether he might grow into the best defenseman in the league.
Schaefer’s birthday also ended the habit of calling him an 18-year-old defenseman. On Friday, he turned 19 and celebrated with the Martin Family and their kids.
There was also a lighter moment off the ice this week. The Islanders are giving a select group of Season Ticket Members a chance to help paint the lines on the ice at UBS Arena.
The event is set for Wednesday, Sept. 9, from 7:30 a.m. to 10:15 a.m., when selected fans will join the ice operations crew as the rink gets ready for the season. Members entered through Isles Rewards for 350 non-refundable points, and winners can bring one guest.
Entries closed Sept. 4.
Around the league, Ilya Sorokin got more recognition after a season that already looked Vezina-caliber. He finished as the runner-up for the trophy for the second time in his career, and this weekend he was revealed as No. 35 on the NHL Network’s Top 50 list after being unranked a year ago.
There was also a look back at one of the franchise’s more memorable playoff nights. On September 5, 2020, the Islanders beat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-0 in Game 7 of the Second Round to reach the Eastern Conference Final for the first time since 1993. Scott Mayfield, Andy Greene, Brock Nelson and Anthony Beauvillier scored, Thomas Greiss made 16 saves, and the Islanders’ 16 shots against were the fewest they allowed in the playoffs.
And if you want one more reminder of how the franchise likes to frame its history, Isles Den put together a summer video showing a long list of Islanders legends scoring their final goals for the team.
In Other News...
Matthew Schaefer Is Giving Islanders Fans A Rare Reason To Dream
For Islanders fans, Matthew Schaefers early rise has already started to feel bigger than a promising rookie season. The young defenseman has landed among The Athletics best young players in the NHL, a sign of how quickly he has gone from intriguing prospect to one of the more compelling long-term pieces on the roster.
The bigger conversation around Schaefer is the kind that almost never gets attached to a defenseman in the first place: whether his trajectory could one day put him in the mix for the leagues MVP award. History makes that an uphill climb, and the standard is enormous, but that is part of what makes Schaefer so interesting right now. He is giving the Islanders something rare, a player talented enough to make fans think not just about the next step, but about how high the ceiling might really go. [Read more 🡒]