The story of 2025 for the Islanders played out as an astonishing reversal in the franchise’s fortunes.
It wasn’t just that they finally ceded to reality and let go of the core that had taken the club to two conference finals during the pandemic, or that they made the fateful decision to move on from Lou Lamoriello.
It’s that what looked like it would be a slow, painful rebuild has gone at light speed. It’s that a team that lacked offense, played a style of hockey that was sometimes hard to watch and was almost never seriously in the playoff mix last year has done a 180 on all those aspects.
The Islanders — the Islanders — are suddenly one of the league’s most fun-to-watch outfits. With their halfway point of the season coming on Thursday at home against Utah, they’re not just in the playoff race, but in the mix to have home-ice advantage in the first round.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
