Islanders make SHOCKING Move...

The New York Islanders have made a shocking move as they make their final roster. Certainly a move I did not see coming. Let me know in the comments if you had Logan Stanley joining the New York Islanders this season on your bingo card, especially as a left-hand defenseman. As we're going to go into on this episode of Islanders Digest, I think this move does make a lot of sense. As we were talking about yesterday, this defense really felt like it was a tryout for, really, four separate guys to see who could make the team. And time and time again, it felt like the person who was making the biggest impression was Kashawn Aitchison, which was not ideal for the Islanders. Of course, for the future, absolutely ideal that Kashawn Aitchison looked that good. But when it comes to his development and how it clearly makes sense for him to play a top pair role in the AHL, considering it's likely that's what he's going to be in the NHL at this point, it really put the Islanders in a bit of a tough situation. Logan Stanley cleans out a lot of that. I know some people are going to compare him to Carson Soucy. At the time, I was mistakenly positive about the Carson Soucy signing. In this case, though, this is a player who has that size. Has a bit more mobility. Gets caught a lot less. People will criticize him all the time. Basically, any third pair defenseman in the NHL is going to get a lot of criticism. But he played well for a long time in a Winnipeg Jets team that for a long time has been better than the New York Islanders. He had a career high last season. And before we get too deep in it, this is a guy who, at the start of free agency, there was talks about him maybe getting $5 million. Didn't happen. GMs were smarter than that. Ultimately signs to the Islanders at $1.5 million. You really can't go wrong there. There's no doubt this is a guy who belongs in the NHL. I was shocked it took as long as it did for him to get signed. And definitely a guy who doesn't have a chip on his shoulder, who hopefully can kind of prove that he deserves more playing time than he was getting. But first, we'll go through all the moves. The Islanders put a couple players on waivers here. Also, the injury updates here. I think I'll save that for last. I'm going to talk about the rosters and decisions that are going to have to be made for the New York Islanders. But the Islanders sent down Sean Aitchison. I think he had a tremendous preseason while he played all four games. He really made this decision tough on Matthew D'Arcy and the Islanders. And I would not be surprised. I said last season I'd be surprised if he played so many games this season. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets a decent look towards the end of the year. Cole Eisman gets sent down along with Isaiah George. Isaiah George is the biggest shock here. Look, this is a guy who I think was penciled in to make this roster from the start. The team wanted to see him prove it, and he didn't. Some people will say or write him off like, oh, that's it, the Isaiah George experiment. Gotta keep in mind, with most of these defensemen, typically it takes a little bit longer to really get their game cemented. Worth noting that Isaiah George is so young that he's going right to Hamilton. He doesn't even have to pass through waivers. So this idea that the Islanders organization is done with him, I don't agree with. It's going to be a tougher road for him now because now that he's in the AHL with Ka'Shawn Aitchison, it's going to be a 1v1 there. They're both going to be playing 22-plus minutes a night down in the AHL. Should be very good for Hamilton. That should keep them very competitive, which is good for the young players. You would have loved to see Isaiah George make this team, but the preseason games, he didn't. And I think one, I saw one note talking about how you got to keep in mind, too, the Islanders were playing a different system. That can be tough for a young player to come in and try to do something different. I think with Isaiah George, the skating is clearly there. The skills are there. It really just looked like at times he just didn't know when to be aggressive, when to be passive. The result was he was leaving guys in front of the net way too long, not being aggressive enough, getting them out of the way. I think he can work on that. I've seen him do that better in the past. I'm not worried about that. And then just some odd jumps he made trying to attack people at the blue line after giving them too much space, gap control. These are things that he's been good at in the past. I don't think this is the end of Isaiah George. We've seen many defensemen in the AHL who struggle all the way to 22, and then all of a sudden, 23-year-old, 24-years-old, they're a different player. I'd be concerned if Isaiah George was on the waiver wire. And for the record, if Isaiah George could not be sent to the AHL without waivers, I don't think they sent him down. I think they see this as an opportunity to get him playing time. Peter DeBoer said stuff like that where he needs to clean up some errors, and they think it'd be good for him to play 20-plus minutes a night. I don't – it's frustrating because I really wanted to see him make the team, but I also have eyes. I watched those games. He absolutely did not make the impression he needed to make. Only one player for the Islanders gets sent on waivers. That is Vitek Vanacek. And with all the injuries to Buffalo's goaltending and the fact that Vitek Vanacek is a goalie who can pick up, play five games, once your guy's healthy, send him back down, would not be surprised if he does get claimed right now. But that would not concern me. Remember, with these third-string goalies, right, if somebody claims him and then they try to put him down on waivers later on, the Islanders will have first rights to pick him back up. And if he clears through waivers, the Islanders can reclaim him, especially if it's within that first month. I think it changes after that. But no concern there. But don't be surprised if Vitek Vanacek gets claimed. And if he does, I'm comfortable, especially with how Varlamov looks with Kotai right now as the organization's third-string goaltender. As we're going to talk about in this video, there are a lot of other issues for the Islanders to deal with. But I think that's enough talk about everything else. Let's focus on Logan Stanley, what he is and what he isn't. There was a strong reaction from the fan base. My first takeaway, this is a one-year contract. As Elliott Friedman reported, he's saying that they're talking when they're at it, and he leaks the contract in that same tweet. This is a one-year deal, $1.5 million, obviously an NHL deal. There's no risk here, right? Maybe you want to say you're risking $250,000, which you can lose if you send them down to the NHL. That's pretty much the extent of the risk here. This is a good guy to fill in on your third pair, honestly. Last season, he would have cost too much. He cost more than Susie at the deadline. This probably would have been a better choice, and maybe they wouldn't have had as big of a collapse if he was in there. He's not a great defenseman, but he gets the job done. For those of you who really like the JFresh advanced analytics, it's not pretty, right? It's red with most of these big guys, it is. Logan Stanley is a six-foot-seven defenseman, very notable for the Islanders, because when you look at Isaiah George and some of the other players that did not make this team, aside from Sean Aitchison, the big problem has been pushing players out of the front of the net. Nobody does that. It's a huge problem on their penalty kill. This is what Logan Stanley specializes in. He's not going to be great on the breakout, anything like that, but if he's playing with, say, a third pair, we'll speculate a guy like Tony D'Angelo, I think that's a pair that could work really well. It's also a pair that could be a complete disaster. We'll see what happens, but this is a very solid signing for the Islanders. Logan Stanley is your prototypical six-to-seventh defenseman. He's not pretty, but he's safe out there, and that's something I do want to emphasize. People will be complaining about how bad he looks, all these things. Similar to the Scott Mayfield conversation, I do want to point out, though, when you go to all the stats of Logan Stanley, his career as a 28-year-old player, too, so unlike with Carson Soucy, you're not really concerned about his skating taking a step back. What you see last year is what you're going to get, and in 2026, he played 76 games, played 16 minutes and 41 seconds a night, so significantly more than what they were getting out of their third pair of left defense last season, and he was a plus-three. You look at the year before that, 63 games. I know plus-minus is not everything, but he was a plus-nine. The year before that, 25 games, he was a plus-four. Pretty much every single season he's played in the NHL, he has been a positive, except one at 2022-2023, where he was a minus-one, and keep in mind, I know the Winnipeg Jets were not great last season. The year before, when he had that plus-nine, they were one of the better teams. They won the President's Trophy. He was playing 15 minutes a night on that team, so this is a solid top-six defenseman. Teams with better defenses in the past have used Logan Stanley. Now, he did not look great in the Buffalo Sabres system. Keep in mind that is a bit... Oh, that is a picture of all time. I did not know that was a picture there, but last season, I also know he had a breakout season in terms of points. I would not expect that, right? Last year, he scored nine goals. That was more goals than he scored in his entire career up to that point. Would not expect that, but he's been shooting more, so I can expect five, maybe some more. I think the assists are more translatable, and he's in block shots, 84 blocks, 110 hits. This is a solid... Listen, he's not a guy you're picking on your fantasy team, anything like that, but he can fill a role for the New York Islanders, and when we talk about a full season, especially 84 games, there can be injuries. There might be even times where you might have to give a guy like Polak, a guy like Pelic, a day, even Romanov, a day off to really recover the body and make sure you're fresh for the full season. Logan Stanley is a perfect option for that, and as an added bonus when it comes to Logan Stanley, this is the type of guy that teams seem to trade for at the deadline, right? It wasn't just him, like him and Luke Shen. Shen's brother got packaged together at the deadline, got a solid pick, solid prospects. At the very least, this is the type of guy, if he has a good season, you can get like a second or third for him at the deadline, so worse come, worse scenario, you can get some assets out of this and maybe even undo the Shen situation, and then by the end of the year, get to look at Isaiah George and Kajon Aitchison, which I'm sure is what everyone wanted. I have no issue with this move. Let me know what you think about it in the comments below. I don't think this is a move that's going to change the fate of the Islanders, but it can prevent some leaking of extra goals when you look at what this team is and the fact that they just don't have much room for error when it comes to the goals, things like that. I think it's a good move for the Islanders. Now, I'm going to finally bring up some notes on the injuries to this team. Tony D'Angelo, maintenance day-to-day, he'll be playing in the first game against Toronto. Schaefer and Shen both skated on their own yesterday. We found out that Schaefer's dealing with an upper body thing, Shen with a lower body thing. I expect them both to play. Shen with his age, I'm a little bit more concerned about the lower body thing. I would be stunned if Schaefer doesn't play in the opening night roster, even though he's not skating and they just signed a left defenseman. I would not read too much into that, especially considering Schaefer is looking like he's going to skate on the right side. So not directly correlated there. And I will also note Adam Pelik was skating with Scott Mayfield today in practice, and I guarantee they will not be doing that in a game. So pretty safe to say that Schaefer will play. And for what it's worth, Kyle McLean was playing on the second line. So that tells me, unfortunately, Shen is on the second line, but sounds like Shen will be all right. And he did have chemistry with Cal Richie, for what that's worth. The more concerning update, Barzell progressing and expected to resume skating soon, but I just don't like the vagueness of that soon. He will travel to Team Toronto for the season opener. Don't get too excited about that. What I take from that is that Barzell will likely participate in a morning skate that day, depending on how he is feeling. I don't expect him to play in Toronto, but if he does participate in a morning skate, and you assume they do this the right way, and they rev him up for a week, hopefully that means he misses only three games. And that's when we talked about him getting injured. That was my ideal scenario, that he takes his time, comes back for the fourth or fifth game, and then we don't deal with this for the rest of the season, but we will see what happens. And then because of this, we now have an idea of what the 23 man or 24 man roster will look like for the New York Islanders. Because Barzell is on the injured reserve, they're able to take an extra player. And on the forwards, and I don't think they're going to stick with these lines, but on the forwards, they're going with Holmstrom, Horvat, and Palmieri, Michelli, Ritchie, and Shen. That is what I believe will be your top six. And honestly, Eklund, Pagiot, Heinemann will be your third line. I really like that third line. I think Heinemann showed some life last night. I think people are too low on him. Ideally, yes, he is your fourth line winger, and he plays with a playmaking center on the fourth line. The Islanders have bigger problems at this point. I'm not going to complain about Heinemann playing on the third or fourth line. He can contribute. He can score. Should be able to protect Eklund. I love it. Pallott, Sezekias, Duclair, final note on the game last night, I think Pallott actually looked a lot better, and I'm hoping he can just be a solid fourth liner, put up 25 or something points. If you do that, I'd be happy with him. And who knows, maybe you can even get rid of him on the deadline for a third or fourth round pick, which would kind of make this whole thing a win for the New York Islanders, even if they had to eat half. I know that's funny to say, but just worth thinking. The Puckpedia, I think they, especially with the injuries, they kind of butchered the Islanders' defensive lines and kind of went to the defaults of last year. But what I think it's going to look like, I think you're going to have Pelic and Schaefer playing on the first pair, and then you're going to have Romanov, Pallott, which is a pair I think we need to give more time. I think people were too harsh on Romanov to start the preseason. Then on the third pair, I think we're going to get Tony D'Angelo and Logan Stanley. I think Logan Stanley's going to play right out of the gate. I don't think they signed him to be a depth option. I think they signed him because they didn't like any of the options they had on the third pair of the left side and this direction they want to go with. I think the Islanders believe that Schaefer, Pallott, Pelic, and Romanov are their top four defensemen, and you can't justify playing Romanov on a third pair. I agree with that, even if he needs a little time to rev up. And then for now, Kessel will be that extra player along with McLean. If I had to guess, when Barzell comes back, and assuming and hoping that nobody else gets injured while he is out, I'm assuming Kessel is going to be the player going down. Just didn't really impress. I think he was fine this preseason, but for the Islanders, it doesn't make sense to send a player down until they know they need the spot. So fine with him staying for now. And yeah, we'll see what happens with this team. I like the Stanley deal. I don't think it's a huge deal, but again, for $1.5 million, you get a defenseman who realistically is going to be better to start the year than Isaiah George would have been. I don't think he's ready. I thought he was ready in the offseason. Didn't look ready to go. You can argue. Actually, I would confidently say that Kashawn Aitchison would be better than Stanley at this point in time, but I don't think that would be best for Kashawn Aitchison's development. So let me know what you have to say in the comments below. A little concerned heading into Wednesday's game for the New York Islanders, especially with the injuries on top of everything else. That roster does not look pretty, but the important thing is I'm still excited for hockey, right? Even if it doesn't look like it's going to be clean, hopefully this team looks better than they did in the preseason. Should be an interesting year at the very least for the New York Islanders, and I'll be covering it all along. So if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to the channel. That's new for this episode of Islanders Digest.