Kyle Palmieri will be staying with the New York Islanders for the foreseeable future, after a four-year contract extension for the forward – worth $5 million per year – was announced last week.
Palmieri was acquired from the New Jersey Devils at the trade deadline and had a slow start with the Islanders, scoring just two goals and four points in 17 regular season games with the team. That said, he was a key factor in helping New York get past both the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins in the playoffs, scoring seven postseason goals.
I’ve gone back and forth a bit on how I feel about the contract, but I’ve settled on believing it’s an alright deal. To start, the term is reasonable at four years, which was the range which we expected for an extension. Palmieri is 30 years old and while he’ll still be an effective top-nine forward for the team, there is the risk of a decline. His numbers were down quite a bit this season, but in a shortened season and after years of consistency, there shouldn’t be too much cause for concern right now. That said, he’ll be 34 years old by the time the deal expires, meaning his production is likely to slip, at least to an extent.
In terms of the price, I was predicting a range of around $4.5 million per year or even a bit less, so his cap hit comes in higher than expected. Palmieri scored just 10 goals and 21 points in 51 games this past season, a pace of 16 goals and 34 points per 82 games. As a result, I was thinking the Islanders may be able to capitalize a bit more while his value was low.
On the other hand, Palmieri had been extremely consistent offensively for about five years before the 2020-21 season, generally scoring at a pace of around 30 goals and 55 points per 82 games. If the expectation is that he’ll bounce back to those numbers, then you could argue the Islanders got him at a really good price.
The success of the contract will be judged on whether Palmieri performs like he did with the Islanders during the regular season or instead, like he did during the first two rounds of the playoffs. Overall though, it’s seemingly a pretty fair deal for both sides.
***We've launched a HockeyBuzz Islanders Twitter account! For anyone interested, you can follow @HB_Islanders for updates on articles, Islanders news, etc.***
New York Islanders Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»