Aside from the ongoing negotiations with Mathew Barzal who are apparently heading in the right direction, Lou Lamoriello says he has the team he wants to take on at the start of the shortened 2020-21 season.
The island manager’s general manager announced during his pre-season availability in the media on Thursday that Matt Martin and Andy Greene, the team’s remaining unrestricted free agents, had agreed to their respective terms. Furthermore, Lamoriello confirmed that Cory Schneider, the former Devils goal scorer, 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 under quarantine according to the league’s COVID-19 protocol.
‘It’s our intention and his intention to be there [at the start of training camp], and hopefully it will happen, ”he said during a Zoom call.
Lamoriello apparently made it a priority to open this season’s outside cap to sign Barzal, send Devon Toews to Colorado and make Johnny Boychuk unofficially retire. He locked up Ryan Pulock for a two-year deal and acquired Dmytro Timashov, a restricted free agent yet to be signed, from the Red Wings.
Asked if he intends to bring in extra players for a Test, Lamoriello indicated that the roster would remain unchanged at Sunday’s training camp.
“I think we’re going to stay with the group at this point,” he said. “Things can always change. There is a lot that is going to happen during the season. But it will be the group at this point. ”
One player who will not be training with the Islanders this season is Joshua Ho-Sang, whose term of office at the organization is still running. It was reported and confirmed by The Post that Ho-Sang would not receive an invitation to a training camp, although he avoided arbitration at the end of October and signed a two-way agreement.
The islanders offered a qualifying offer to Ho-Sang in early October, but the former 28th overall pick in 2014 submitted arbitration to Lamoriello’s surprise.
When it came time to evaluate the current roster for the training camp, Lamoriello said he did not think Ho-Sang would crack even the taxi group of four to six people that all teams will have this season.
‘We decided to take our four goal scorers, 12 defenders and 21 forwards, that is seven lines, knowing that we had once received the transition rules that it would be a timetable, plus a taxi group of maximum four, minimum six , ”Lamoriello said. “When we researched our whole group about who we had the best chance of reaching the four to six, he was not one of them.”
After defenders Adam Pelech (wrist) and Casey Cizikas (detached retina) underwent a successful operation at the end of last season, Lamoriello confirmed on Thursday that the two are ‘100 percent healthy’ and that they are doing the full exercise in the training camp will take.