With free agency underway and the dust starting to settle from the NHL Draft, the New York Islanders have been making a lot of important decisions of late. Now, as the team continues to try to improve, it will be interesting to see how they will stack up in the Eastern Conference. In both the NHL Draft and to start to free agency, the Islanders have been a busy group. Last season, New York was a major surprise. This was a team that was able to win the NHL Lottery and drafted defenseman Matthew Schaefer. The talented young defenseman was able to come in and make a major impact right away. As a player who appears to be a potential superstar, he helped improve the Islanders overnight. Furthermore, the team also saw their goalie Ilya Sorokin have an amazing campaign. This combination helped the Islanders win a lot more games than they likely should have and sped up the timeline a bit. Now, as the team starts to plan for the future, they likely aren’t going to rush things, and they perhaps might regret a couple of moves made at the trade deadline. While there is still plenty of offseason to go, the Islanders might not make any more major moves. However, their general manager Mathieu Darche believes that they once again can be a playoff contender. #Isles Mathieu Darche:“I still view this team as a playoff contender. Does it mean we'll make the playoffs? No, it doesn't […] but I still want us to be competitive as we start bringing younger guys into our lineup.”— Stefen Rosner (@stefen_rosner) July 2, 2026New York was right in the wild card mix until the end of the season last year, but ultimately came up a few points short. Now, this is a team that will be hoping to be a bit better next season, but they were limited in what they could do this summer due to a bad cap situation. However, of the moves the Islanders were able to make, bringing in Matias Maccelli could be a major upside move. The young forward has been a good playmaker from the wing, and he will be motivated to have a bounce-back campaign. While the team was able to add Maccelli, they did see their captain Anders Lee depart in free agency. With Lee landing a three-year deal with the Utah Mammoth, it was really a no-brainer that he ended up leaving. New York is clearly not going to be locking up veteran players to multi-year deals at this point, and it will be the end of an era with the Islanders. Now, as the team turns a new page, they will need something to go right in order to be a playoff team next year.