00:00The season is over for the New York Islanders. They just had breakup day a couple of days ago,
00:06so we got to talk about everything that went down with the Islanders this season, including
00:10what went wrong that caused them to miss the playoffs, and is the future actually bright
00:14for the Isles. To do all that, we're going to talk with our beat writer who covers the
00:19Islanders for the New York Post, the one and only Ethan Sears, joins me now. Ethan, how you doing,
00:23man? I'm great. Thanks so much, Dexter. Always great to talk some Islanders hockey with you,
00:29Ethan. So, Ethan, we got to do this. We got to talk about what happened with the Isles this
00:33season. This is a team that was in a playoff spot for over 100 days, looked like they were going
00:40to
00:40the playoffs, and then they did it. So, how do you explain a collapse where they lost 10 out of
00:45the
00:45last 14 games to end the season and miss the postseason? What do you think was the real breaking
00:51point of what went wrong with this Islanders team? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different
00:57sort of points over the last month that you can go back to, but I kind of keep going back
01:03to two
01:04in particular. The first one is the loss they had in Ottawa that sort of started this whole thing off,
01:11and that was a game where it was the middle of March. The Senators were basically playing for their
01:18lives at that point, and the Islanders, they took a lead into the third period. Ottawa tied it kind of
01:23within the first few minutes of the third, and the Islanders spent the rest of that third period
01:28basically playing for overtime. They sat back and seemed like a little bit content to, you know,
01:34get a point, and Ottawa scores, wins the game with under a minute left in regulation, and all of a
01:41sudden,
01:41the Islanders drop out of playoff spot the next day. And I think that was for a lot of players,
01:49for a lot of people around the organization, conceptually, right, everybody knew that,
01:56you know, they were not guaranteed to be in the playoffs. You know, they were, it was always a
02:00close race. They were in a spot, but they were only up by a point or two points or whatever
02:04it was,
02:05depending on the day. But I think that was the first time where it really felt like,
02:11oh, there's a race here. And, you know, and they really might not be in. And I think that that
02:19sort of affected them. Because they never seemed to really recover from that game. So that's number
02:25one. And then the second was the two back to back games they played against Philly and in Carolina,
02:32where two nights in a row, they come out there, they're basically their lives are on the line,
02:38and they had really no urgency, no desperation. Both of those first periods were just disasters.
02:45Patrick Waugh gets fired after they lose both those games and they get back to New York and it's
02:51kind of like, well, they need to win their last four to even have a chance. And even if they
02:59do that,
02:59they still don't control their own destiny. So that was when you knew that, that this probably
03:05wasn't happening. But I mean, again, there's, you know, six more games that you can point to and say,
03:11like, you know, that was that those were where it got away.
03:14Right. It's always hard to, you know, pinpoint it down to one game. And now we're trying to do that.
03:20But I think fans are always looking for this point of where did this go wrong? And a lot of
03:24things had
03:25to go wrong to get to this point. But you mentioned, you mentioned the firing of Patrick Waugh late in
03:30the
03:30season with this team when they were struggling, as you mentioned, really in the struggles at that
03:35point, when you look back on it, and it's very recent, but did you feel that was a necessary move
03:41for the Isles going forward? And, or does it speak to maybe a deeper instability within the
03:47organization right now? What do you think about that?
03:51Yeah, I think it was probably necessary in the sense that the Islanders had kind of stopped playing
03:56for Patrick Waugh. And at that point, you know, it's just sort of a matter of time for
04:02for the head coach, right? The timing obviously was unorthodox. I think Matthew Darsh saw it as
04:10Pete DeBoer gave them a better chance of winning out and making the playoffs and was going to be his
04:17preferred candidate in the offseason anyway. And they were obviously trending toward change.
04:23So why not jump the line, get him now, and try to maximize your chances of making a run
04:30in the moment? You know, whether it ends up being the right call, we'll see over the next year and
04:36probably longer. I don't think that there's organizational instability, in the sense that,
04:42you know, Darsh is a year into his job, he's early in his tenure, there's still a lot of trust
04:47in him
04:47on an organizational level. And if you look at the big picture questions around what is the long-term
04:54direction of the franchise and how close are the Islanders to winning a Stanley Cup, you know,
05:01in the next five years compared to if you asked that question a year ago, as bad as this season
05:07ended, it's pretty hard to argue that those big picture questions don't look a lot better than they
05:14did a year ago. Granted, you could, I guess, argue that like, hey, Darsh was given a gift in
05:20Matthew Schaefer, and that's a big reason why. But to give him some credit, like, he made the right
05:28pick, clearly, and the Islanders clearly handled that situation very well and gave Matthew Schaefer,
05:34you know, space to kind of thrive in his first year in the NHL. So, you know, I do think
05:41Matthew
05:42Darsh deserves some credit there. All right, so we're giving Matthew Darsh some credit. And
05:46part of what you all said there too, Ethan, is, right, there is a way you can look at this
05:50and
05:50say the future is bright. And I think when you're looking at the future being bright for the Isles,
05:54you got to look at this young core, and you just mentioned Matthew Schaefer, you also got Victor
05:59Eklund as well too, here with the Islanders. Is there enough there with this, that young core that you
06:07can believe that this team can turn things around quickly? Or do you look at this as a process that
06:12is going to take some more time in terms of this team being a Stanley Cup contender?
06:16Yeah, I mean, I think that there's certainly enough to believe that this should be a playoff
06:20team next season. Most likely, they are still, you know, two or three seasons away from being a genuine
06:28cup contender. Because, you know, the young guys look, Schaefer is,
06:34I think he can be for the Islanders, basically what Sidney Crosby was for the Penguins, or Alex
06:39Ovechkin for the Capitals. Like, he's that good. And he's that good right away at age 18.
06:45Cal Ritchie had a really great year. His direction is really encouraging.
06:50He also just turned 21. There's going to be some degree of growing pains there.
06:55Eklund, really encouraging season. He's in a great spot. He also just played his first NHL game.
07:01We don't know if he's going to start next year on the roster. And again, like,
07:06there's a development process that's going to happen there.
07:08Kashaun Aitchison, Cole Weiserman, those guys, if you're betting, probably more likely to start
07:13next season in the AHL. And, you know, Matthew Schaefer is the exception in terms of not a lot of
07:21guys can come in and be anywhere near that good right away and really just not have, like,
07:29Matthew Schaefer's worst game this year. He didn't have nights where he looked, like,
07:34overwhelmed by the NHL, which is really, really rare for a rookie.
07:39So if you look at what the Islanders have right now, right, it's obviously with Schaefer.
07:44They have one of the best goalies in the league in Ilya Sorokin.
07:47They have some high-end offensive talent in Beau Horvath and Matt Barzell.
07:51They have some good complementary pieces kind of down the lineup.
07:54There's still places on this roster, though, where you feel like they need to improve.
07:58And some of their guys who you kind of project out as part of the long-term core
08:02are still going to take time to either reach the NHL or really sort of become the best versions of
08:08themselves up there. So I think it's going to take some time for all of that to play out.
08:12But, again, short-term, like, this should be a playoff team next year.
08:17And I think that they would hope that their cup window opens kind of in the 27-28 season
08:26when some of the young guys are really blossoming, and that also coincides with some of their
08:32other contracts coming off the books and then having a little more flexibility in terms of
08:37what they can maybe add.
08:39So, Ethan, when I hear that, and the last thing for me would be you're talking about
08:43next year this team should be a Stanley Cup playoff team.
08:47What do they need to do this offseason to improve the roster so that next season
08:53they are that Stanley Cup playoff team?
08:55What do they have to do this offseason?
08:56Yeah, I mean, I think the pie-in-the-sky thing would be, like, they need a game-breaking scorer.
09:03That's not something that's really available in free agency,
09:06and it might not be available in a trade either.
09:10But that's always been, really, since I've covered this team, and longer than that,
09:14it's been sort of the big hole on this roster.
09:17They haven't had a 40-goal scorer since 2018.
09:20They haven't had a 100-point scorer since 1993.
09:24You know, so that would be number one if you could kind of just get whatever you wanted.
09:31More realistically, I think they're a little bare on the right side of their defense.
09:36They never really replaced Noah Dobson, and that, to me, showed up as a problem throughout the year.
09:43I think they can use, you know, a couple sort of two-way wingers in their middle six.
09:49Like, Mason Marchman is the sort of player who's a free agent this summer,
09:52and I don't know whether they'll go after him specifically, but that's the kind of guy who I look at
09:57and say,
09:57like, okay, 20-point scorer, 50-point guy, big guy, he can agitate, he can make him harder to play
10:05against,
10:05he can give some protection to Matthew Schaefer, but, you know, you're not getting him just to be like an
10:11enforcer.
10:12He can score the puck and do other things as well.
10:15You know, I think that prototype of player would fit really well for them.
10:20They need a backup goalie, but it does seem like the sort of obvious move there is to re-sign
10:26David Riddich.
10:27He clearly wants to be back on Long Island and liked his time here this season.
10:31So, you know, it'll be an interesting offseason for them in the sense that I think there's some cognitive dissonance
10:40where they probably need more than they can realistically go get in one offseason,
10:47and they're going to have to, you know, contend with that and probably make some compromises.
10:53And how Matthew Darsh handles that is going to be really interesting to see.
10:57Yeah, it really is.
10:58It's going to be an interesting offseason for the Islanders.
11:01It's an interesting situation, Ethan, when you have such a disappointing end to the season
11:05when Islanders lost 10 or last 14 games, but the future is still bright because of the young core that
11:10they have,
11:11and hopefully they can be a playoff team next season in the 2026-2027 season.
11:16That is Ethan Sears did a fantastic job of covering the Islanders for us here at the New York Post.
11:21Ethan, I'm sure I will talk to you more throughout the offseason.
11:24Appreciate you, man.
11:25Thank you, Dexter.
11:26Appreciate it.
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