Islanders GM Mathieu Darche met the media today (video link) following the draft. While their newest crop of prospects was part of the focus, he also spoke about his current group and provided several updates heading into free agency.
On the qualifying offer front, Darche indicated that defenseman Adam Boqvist will not receive one. The 25-year-old had a sparing role this season, being limited to just 28 games where he had four assists and averaged just 13:06 of playing time. Over his career, Boqvist has 272 career NHL appearances, meaning that he would have had a strong case in salary arbitration. Non-tendering him avoids any risk of him filing for a hearing while also opening up a spot for Isaiah George to get a shot at locking down a full-time roster spot in training camp.
Darche also noted that he is uncertain about tendering offers to two of his other RFAs, forwards Marc Gatcomb and Max Shabanov. Gatcomb has been an effective energy player when up with the big club in the past two seasons, notching 11 goals and 341 hits in 88 games. His qualifying offer is certainly affordable at $945K but it also carries arbitration eligibility. This could be a case where the two sides either work out a deal before Monday’s tender deadline or they run the risk of letting him hit the market.
As for Shabanov, the Islanders won a deep race to sign him as an undrafted free agent last summer out of Russia. However, he didn’t quite have the desired impact, notching 18 points in 44 games while averaging 13:41 of ice time. Playing time was hard to come by in the second half of the season. Even though he just wrapped up his first year, he’s arbitration-eligible based on his age and again, it wouldn’t be surprising if Darche didn’t want to run the risk of him filing and getting a higher award than they’re comfortable paying. The walkaway threshold this summer is just over $4.95MM; teams can’t walk away from a player awarded less than that.
In terms of their goaltending, Darche confirmed that the plan is go into next season with Semyon Varlamov as the backup. The 38-year-old didn’t see any action this season while recovering from knee surgeries although he had a brief LTIR conditioning stint in the minors at the end of the year. That was enough for them to evidently feel confident enough that Varlamov will be up to the task although Darche stated that they will also bring in an insurance policy between the pipes as well.
Meanwhile, cap space is somewhat limited, around $6.1MM, per PuckPedia. They’re still hoping to re-sign veteran Anders Lee and potentially try to add other pieces as well, something they don’t have enough flexibility to do at the moment. However, Darche indicated that he doesn’t intend to use a buyout by the June 30th deadline unless one is absolutely needed. Accordingly, if they’re going to open up more room to spend, they’ll be doing so on the trade front.
