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The New York Islanders found out on Wednesday that defender Johnny Boychuk’s career was coming to an end due to an eye injury in March.
Combined with Devon Toews’ previous trade with the Colorado Avalanche, it means the Islanders lost two of their top six defenders last season.
Given the team’s salary cap, there has always been a chance they had to find a way to overturn Boychuk’s contract, but now that he’s not officially returning, he still leaves a pretty big hole in their defenses and creates some fascinating ones Questions for the next few weeks.
Trading Toews and Boychuk going to LTIR will have a significant impact on their salary caps.
Before Wednesday’s news, Islanders had just over $ 3 million below the salary cap for the upcoming season and several steps had to be taken.
Not only will they need to find the room to re-sign their franchise player – the restricted free agent Mathew Barzal – it is rumored that UFA contracts with Matt Martin, Andy Greene and Cory Schneider are pending.
Barzal believes he takes up a significant portion of that space, and depending on the team, it can range from $ 7 million and maybe even $ 9 or 10 million in the upper end of the range.
Getting him signed is the most important step for the islanders, and something had to be done with the salary cap before they could.
While Boychuk may not be who he was when he first arrived in New York, losing him and Toews in an off-season will be a heavy blow to their defense.
The Islanders are still bringing back a solid group with Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock and Nick Leddy at the helm. Noah Dobson is also waiting in the starting blocks for his opportunity.
There is also the option of being re-signed by Greene. The islanders bought him at close of trade last season to add some depth, and his performance over the past few years has been virtually identical to Boychuk’s. He should be a good replacement for an entire season.
Still, one wonders if the islanders would have reconsidered the Toews trade if they had known what would happen to Boychuk just a few weeks later. Even with a re-signing by Greene, which leaves the Islanders with just seven NHL defenders under contract for the season, Toews would be an upgrade over several of them. The salary cap would still be an issue (Toews signed for $ 4 million a year in Colorado), but it would have been manageable. Especially when using LTIR with Andrew Ladd’s contract.
The free agent market is currently weak, but Zdeno Chara, Sami Vatanen, Ben Hutton, and Slater Koekkoek would probably be the best options available.
Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk for NBC Sports. Write him an email at phtblog @ nbcsports. com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.
Johnny Boychuk, New York Islander, Boston Bruins, National Hockey League, Stanley Cup, Defenseman
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Ref: https://nhl.nbcsports.com
