There is one large domino that has to fall — or not — before the rest of the Islanders’ offseason business can commence.
The No. 3 on the back of Travis Hamonic’s white jersey very well could have been three black dots, teetering and ready to topple, with the status of his pending trade request coloring the most important and complicated summer of work for general manager Garth Snow since he took over in 2006.
With the players set to reconvene for exit interviews Tuesday back on Long Island, the sting of the 4-0 elimination loss to the Lightning in Game 5 of their second-round series in Tampa on Sunday afternoon is still fresh. The fact that it was likely Hamonic’s final game as an Islander wasn’t lost on anyone and could be seen in his watering eyes.
Yet coach Jack Capuano made a curious statement, saying he and his staff were not planning on losing Hamonic, only because nothing had happened yet. The soon-to-be 26-year-old had asked to be moved before the season started for an undisclosed personal reason so he could be closer to his family outside of Winnipeg.
Capuano’s statement showed there is at least a hope circulating around the franchise that Hamonic will change his mind and stay. With his terrific postseason and his relatively modest $3.857 million salary-cap hit over the next four seasons, he is a coveted player for interested teams in the northern parts of the Midwest and West. What type of deal Snow is looking for remains uncertain, though packaging Hamonic with one of the Islanders’ many prospects could bring back a large haul, including at least one impactful NHL player.
Which is why the sooner that deal can be done — or the sooner the Islanders can convince Hamonic to stay — then a better idea Snow can have about what his 2016-17 roster will look like, and the rest of the business can commence.
That starts with addressing the free agencies of forwards Kyle Okposo, Frans Nielsen and Matt Martin. Let’s say Snow can pry Ryan Nugent-Hopkins out of Edmonton, does that make Nielsen expendable? If Hamonic is traded for a return that combines for a larger salary-cap hit, then is there not enough space to fit substantial raises for Okposo and Martin?
The most unpredictable part of every team’s offseason is also the expansion draft looming in the summer of 2017. How many players, and how much salary, will they be forced to expose for the assumed new team in Las Vegas?
For the Islanders, that draft might come as a godsend concerning 32-year-old Johnny Boychuk and his $6 million cap hit for the next six seasons — a deal that was necessary at the time and has started to show the early signs of being an albatross for the coming years. Or how about goalie Jaroslav Halak, who seemingly can’t stay healthy and has two more years remaining at $4.5 million, now part of a goaltending tandem following the breakout postseason (however disappointingly it ended) of Thomas Greiss.
But all good teams have bad contracts. It’s part of the way the NHL works under the hard-cap system. And all good teams are forced, at some point or another, to make difficult decisions with players they like.
“Another guy that’s been a warrior for us back there,” Capuano had said about Hamonic, whom he coached through the ranks since the Islanders drafted him in the third round of 2008. “You see the way he plays hard every single night.”
So does the rest of the league, and that is what makes him such a valuable commodity. Maybe the Islanders somehow find a way to convince him to stay. Maybe not. But the sooner a decision can be made, or the sooner a deal can be completed, then the sooner the Islanders can get on with their collective life.
“That’s a tough part about losing, not going to the rink tomorrow, to go on the ice and practice,” Capuano said. “Every team goes through it.”