In The Least Surprising News Of All Time, Barry Trotz Will Be The Next Coach Of The New York Islanders
And there you have it. I’m pretty sure the exact moment that it was announced Barry Trotz would be stepping down as head coach of the Washington Capitals, that he’d end up with the Islanders. For starters, it was the only vacancy available unless he’d be waiting for somebody else to get fired or maybe hold off until Seattle. It allows him to stay in the Metropolitan Division. It’s not the furthest move from Washington. The Islanders are taking steps in the right direction and $4 million is a lot of money. So yeah, Trotz getting hired by the Islanders is about as un-surprising as him resigning from Washington in the first place.
Now here’s the final question. The New York Islanders hired Lou Lamoriello. Lightning Lou took over general managing duties for the club. He went out and got the reigning Stanley Cup winning head coach. The Islanders have a new arena deal in place. If I’m Big Lou, I’m hopping on the phone right now with John Tavares and politely asking “uhhhh hey, buds. Just what in the actual fuck more do you need me to do to get you to stay?”
Because even with the Trotz hiring, there’s still not a decision made from the Tavares camp. I mean I find it pretty hard to believe at this point that he won’t end up staying with the Isles. But the fact that there’s a new GM, a new head coach, a new arena on the way and he still hasn’t made his decision? Well I guess I’d be at least a little worried. But again, there’s almost nothing more that the Islanders could do at this point. This was the biggest offseason in this generation of the franchise’s history and they’ve done everything right so far. They’ve made all the moves they needed to make to keep their franchise star in their uniform. Between hiring Lou, hiring Trotz, and (most likely) keeping Tavares, I’d say this was a pretty successful offseason for the Isles. Now they’ll probably pick up Grubauer in free agency, have a John Tavares who can focus solely on playing on Long Island for the rest of his career, Mat Barzal who just won rookie of the year, yada yada yada. I fucking hate my life as a Philadelphia Flyers fan because the Islanders are about to fuck next year.