With all the talk of the Islanders’ need to pick up elite-level scoring this offseason, the most important asset the organization has to lure big-name free agents in might not be money.
Despite being projected to have the fourth-most salary cap space in the NHL this offseason, the Islanders’ ability to get top goal scorers is going to be a tough sell.
And it all lies within their housing situation.
Despite being awarded the site near Belmont Park in Elmont, NY to develop a new arena back in December of 2017, a shovel has yet to go into the ground.
A lengthy environmental review process, coupled with some pushback from Elmont residents, has cast some doubt on construction ever getting underway.
Yet NHL and Islanders brass continue to confirm that things are on or close to schedule.
“I’m expecting to be at a groundbreaking sometime in the next few months,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said last week (h/t Newsday). “It’s still coming, I have no reason to believe it’s not.”
“I would not have come here if there was not going to be a new arena,” Islanders president of hockey operations and general manager Lou Lamoriello said.
For the past 30 years, the Islanders have been hampered by an arena situation that withheld them from signing or securing star talent.
The Nassau Coliseum’s descent into obsoletion forced the Islanders to apply for renovations, which was denied by town politicians. It forced the Islanders to move to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, a venue simply not built for hockey.
A nightmarish marriage between arena and organization led to a split of games this season between Brooklyn and the newly-refurbished Coliseum, which was spruced up to be a special-events center rather than a hockey venue.
Each of the next two seasons will feature a similar split until the Belmont Arena is ready for its projected 2021-22 opening.
It still will be difficult to coax the likes of Matt Duchene or Artemi Panarin to spend two years playing in two different arenas. But getting shovels in the ground this summer before the start of free agency on July 1 will only help the Islanders’ chances of building a legitimate contender.
