Aside from the ongoing negotiations with Mathew Barzal, who seem to be heading in the right direction, Lou Lamoriello says he has the team he wants to take at the start of the shortened 2020-21 season.
Islanders general manager announced on Thursday, during the pre-season, the availability of the press that Matt Martin and Andy Greene, the remaining free agents of the team, agreed to their terms. In addition, Lamoriello confirmed that former Devils guardian Cory Schneider has also signed a contract with the Islands.
Although he had nothing new to report on the ongoing talks with Barzal and his camp, Lamoriello said the 23-year-old star center is in New York and is in quarantine under the league’s COVID-19 protocol.
“It is our intention and his intention to be there [at the start of training camp]”And we hope it will happen,” he said in a Zoom call.
Apparently, Lamoriello has made it a priority to free up ceiling space in the offseason so he can sign Barzal, send Devon Toews to Colorado, and unofficially retire Johnny Boychuk. He locked Ryan Pulock in a two-year deal and bought Dmytro Timashov from Red Wings earlier this month, a restricted free agent yet to be signed.
When asked if he intends to bring in additional players for a try, Lamoriello indicated that the list will remain unchanged, heading to the camp on Sunday.
“I think at this point, we will stay with the group we have,” he said. “Things can always change. A lot will happen throughout the season. But this will be the group right now. “
One player who will not join the islands for training camp this season is Joshua Ho-Sang, whose tenure within the organization continues to change. It was reported and confirmed by The Post that Ho-Sang will not receive an invitation to the training camp, despite avoiding arbitration at the end of October and signing a two-way agreement.
The Islanders offered Ho-Sang a qualifying bid in early October, but the former 28th pick in 2014 submitted to arbitration to Lamoriello’s surprise.
When it came time to evaluate the current list for the training camp, Lamoriello said he did not think Ho-Sang would even break the four- to six-person taxi team that all teams will have this season.
“We decided that we would take four goalkeepers, 12 defenders and 21 strikers, that is, seven lines, knowing once we received the transition rules, that it would be a list plus a taxi team of maximum four, minimum six,” Lamoriello said . “When we looked at our whole group about who we felt had the best chance of making that four to six, he wasn’t one of them.”
After defenders Adam Pelech (wrist) and Casey Cizikas (detached retina) underwent a successful surgery at the end of last season, Lamoriello confirmed on Thursday that the two are “100% healthy” and will practice completely in the training camp.