The New York Islanders have announced their season-opening roster, featuring two goaltenders, seven defensemen, and 13 forwards.
In goal, Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov are obviously back, for what will be their fifth season as a tandem. The bigger news is that Sorokin is expected to be ready for the start of the year, which was in question following his offseason back surgery.
On the blue line, six of the seven defensemen to make the roster come as no surprise. All of Noah Dobson, Alexander Romanov, Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock, Mike Reilly and Scott Mayfield were all locks, and are expected to take the six playing slots on the blue line for opening night.
However, the notable development was Samuel Bolduc being waived and sent down to the AHL, and Dennis Cholowski making the team. Bolduc had spent the year with New York, primarily as a spare, but still played 34 games. Given his age, the hope was that he could develop into a long-term part of the defense group, but he struggled to make an impact when he did get into action last season.
Cholowski, on the other hand, is 26 years old, and was a former first-round pick of the Detroit Red Wings. He played two games with the Islanders in the 2022-23 season, but has spent the last two years with the AHL’s Bridgeport Islanders. While he’ll start as a spare, it’ll be interesting to see if he can win his way into the lineup.
Up front, again, the majority of the players on the roster were locks from the get-go. The 10 of Mathew Barzal, Casey Cizikas, Anthony Duclair, Simon Holmstrom, Bo Horvat, Anders Lee, Kyle MacLean, Brock Nelson, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Kyle Palmieri were never in question for a roster spot. Then while Maxim Tsyplakov may not be a returning player, he always seemed to fall into that group as well.
However, the two players who ended up making the team who probably came into training camp without a guaranteed spot were Oliver Wahlstrom and Julien Gauthier. Wahlstrom may be entering his fifth full season with the team, but he’s seen his role drastically reduced. Last season, he got into just 32 games with the Islanders. Gauthier, on the other hand, looked really good at times in his limited action with New York last season, but again, it seemed like there may not be room for him on the roster.
But with Wahlstrom and Gauthier winning roster spots, it meant two other forwards were on the outside looking in. Hudson Fasching, who’s played almost 100 games with the team over the last two seasons, wasn't able to crack the roster. But the bigger omission was Pierre Engvall.
Despite the winger having six years still remaining on his contract, Engvall was placed on waivers yesterday, and cleared.
Engvall was coming off a disappointing first season in New York, but heading into training camp, I don’t think many could have predicted that he wouldn’t make the roster altogether. He managed 10 goals and 28 points in 74 games last season, but his performance could be wildly inconsistent. He has speed, but aside from that, you were sometimes left wondering what he actually brings to the lineup. Engvall doesn’t play a very physical game for someone his size, isn’t going to provide high-level offense, and isn’t anything special defensively. In an odd way, the organization may actually earn a bit of trust in basically being willing to admit their mistake with the Engvall contract by waiving him, rather than trying to keep him on the roster if it wasn’t what was best for the team.
While the Islanders don’t have the cap space to add a 23rd man to the roster, Matt Martin also remains on a professional tryout with New York as well.
The Islanders kick off their season on Thursday, when they host Utah.
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