Islanders News: No PTOs coming to Long Island

In what can only be described as a massive plot twist: There’s actual New York Islanders news!

Prospect camp technically opens today, as we found out yesterday—in typical Islanders fashion—but they don’t hit the ice until tomorrow. Big boy training camp opens next Wednesday. (All this information can be found in the Newsday article below; thank you, Andrew Gross.)

Islanders News

• Lane Lambert spoke to the media yesterday and stated that he does not expect any players on PTOs to join camp. Thus, the local boy Sonny Milano dream might be dead. But Lambert said he is comfortable with these players. [Newsday]
• That said, he is not allowing these players any excuses. But in his eyes, it won’t even get to that point; the pain of last season, he says, is fueling the guys, many of whom are itching to get to work. [NY Post]

• Kevin Kurz asks a question about each player who will (or has a decent chance to) make the opening night roster. [The Athletic]
• This (Two) Day(s Ago) in Isles History: Lou Lamoriello wins his first of two consecutive Jim Gregory Awards as top NHL GM (2020).

Elsewhere

• The St. Louis Blues locked in Jordan Kyrou to the same contract that Robert Thomas got: eight years, $65 million ($8.125 million AAV). [Sportsnet | NHL]
• Jake McCabe will be out 10-12 weeks after undergoing spinal surgery. The Chicago Blackhawks defenseman missed his final 42 games of his Buffalo Sabres career in 2021 with a torn ACL and MCL. [NHL]
• However, the Philadelphia Flyers will have both Sean Couturier and Kevin Hayes healthy this year. [NHL]
• As training camps get closer for everyone, a question for every team heading into it. For the Islanders, it involves Mathew Barzal. [The Athletic]
• One of the recurring storylines on the 32 Thoughts podcast has been the fact that this season was the last on Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill’s contract and what he might do under those circumstances. Well, Dallas extended him for a year, so Elliotte and Jeff will have to find something else to discuss. [NHL]
• They complimented the choice, even though he is an Ontarian, but Quebec politicians encouraged Nick Suzuki to learn French. Suzuki has already started, too. [ESPN]
• For our fantasy hockey heads: a preview on defensemen. Links to previews for the forward positions are also in this article in an inset toward the bottom. [ESPN]
• Power rankings, while still around, used to be all the rage; now, they’re just another weekly column. But tiers, they’re all the rage, now. Oliver Wahlstrom made Tier 3. [ESPN+]
• The more that comes out about this story, the worse it gets: Hockey Canada actually wrote to the Canadian federal government in 2019 asking if it was allowed to self-govern all its safe-sport cases without the law getting involved. This also means the Canadian feds have been aware, since 2019, of the big ol’ fund out of which Hockey Canada produced settlement money to make disappear all the sexual assault claims against its players. [Sportsnet]