No matter what happens, it is very hard to picture a world in which the Islanders come out as definitive losers of the past 24 hours.
Combine the two deals they made with their two crosstown rivals and Mathieu Darche, essentially, traded an underperforming Maxim Tsyplakov, who was in need of a change of scenery, to the Devils in exchange for Carson Soucy, Ondrej Palat and a 2027 sixth-round pick, while swapping his 2026 third-rounder with New Jersey’s — which might end up being a better pick when all is said and done.
Palat’s $6 million cap hit next season could become a problem for the Islanders to navigate, but even in the absolute worst-case scenario, they can wash their hands of him in 2027. It’s hard to get too worked up about that when Pierre Engvall will be on the books until 2030.
Taken together, the two deals are a shrewd piece of business. Soucy addresses a need the Islanders tried for two months to fill internally and could not; getting someone who could be defensively steady on the third pair was an absolute necessity between now and the trade deadline, and Ryan Pulock’s injury this week only served to highlight that further.
