The New York Islanders are looking to re-sign key free agent forwards Casey Cizikas and Kyle Palmieri, according to general manager Lou Lamoriello.
Cizikas has spent his entire career with the Islanders, playing a total of 590 games with the team. This season, he had seven goals and 14 points in 56 games, a pace of 10 goals and 21 points per 82 games. He’s coming off a contract that held a $3.35 million AAV.
Palmieri was acquired from the New Jersey Devils at the trade deadline. Despite a pretty slow stretch in the regular season, he was very good for the Islanders in the first two rounds of the postseason. The winger’s AAV on his last contract was $4.65 million.
ANALYSIS
While I think it would be ideal for the Islanders to bring back both Cizikas and Palmieri, unless some pretty major moves are made to clear cap space, it doesn’t look too realistic. The Islanders have under $6 million available, with Adam Pelech, Anthony Beauvillier, and Ilya Sorokin all in need of new contracts, as restricted free agents. Any cap space cleared through trades or the expansion draft would likely be aimed towards re-signing those key RFAs first.
Then the question is whether New York should bring them back. Even if the Islanders could clear the cap space, both players are 30 years old and could each forward be nearing a decline. To counter that though, I do think both forwards are only likely to get mid-range contracts of three to four years each so I wouldn’t be too worried about their age, but it’s still something for management to consider. Again though, the Islanders are looking to compete now so while they are an older team, getting younger isn’t going to be a priority over remaining a contender anyways.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Lamoriello is able to find some way to bring one of the players back for next season.
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Are you hoping the Islanders are able to re-sign both forwards?
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