In a series for The Hockey News, we are looking at how the New York Islanders compare to the other seven teams in the Metropolitan Division heading into the 2024-25 season.
Up first is the Carolina Hurricanes.
Carolina Hurricanes
Key Departures: Jake Guentzel, Teuvo Teravainen, Brett Pesce, Brady Skjei, Stefan Noesen, Evgeny Kuznetsov
Key Additions: Shayne Ghostisbehere, Sean Walker, Jack Roslovic, William Carrier, Tyson Jost
Islanders record vs. Hurricanes: 2-1-1 in regular season, 1-4-0 in playoffs
The Carolina Hurricanes have owned the Islanders during the regular season and the postseason for what feels like forever.
The Hurricanes have always had a well-balanced lineup that can play all styles of hockey, including offensive, defensive, and gritty.
However, there have been massive changes this offseason.
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Starting up front, the Hurricanes’ top three forwards are Sebastian Aho, Seth Jarvis, and Andrei Svechnikov, who are easily a top-10 trio in the league. From there, there are a lot of question marks.
Martin Necas is a younger player who is really starting to develop into one of the most skilled forwards in the league, but his future in Carolina is up in the air even though he signed a two-year extension.
Jesperi Kotkaniemi was a fourth-line player last season who has not lived up to the hype of being a former third-overall pick in the 2018 draft but will be forced to fill a huge top-six role come October.
The rest of the forward core is filled with role players like Jack Drury, Jack Roslovic, Jordan Staal, and William Carrier. Head coach Rod Brind’Amour will systemically make sure that this team competes for every game and will likely be playoff-bound, but they definitely got weaker.
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Looking at the Islanders lineup, it surely doesn’t seem impossible to overcome the obstacle of finishing higher or possibly beating Carolina in a postseason series this year.
The trio of Mat Barzal, Bo Horvat, and Anthony Duclair can certainly compete with Carolina’s big three. After that, the Islanders hold the depth advantage this time around.
Kyle Palmeri, Brock Nelson, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and Pierre Engvall are all proven top-six and middle-six players who can put up good offensive numbers and have no issue playing a 200-foot game.
On the back end, Carolina lost significant pieces in Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei. They were able to sign Shayne Ghostisbehere and Sean Walker, but it certainly does not fill the holes Pesce and Skjei brought to the team. The Hurricanes will have Jaccob Slavin, Brett Burns,
Ghostisbhere, Walker, Jalen Chatfield, and Dimitry Orlov, which is a solid defensive core but also very questionable.
The Islanders did not make any changes on defense but are hopeful of a bounceback season from a lot of their top guys. Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock, Noah Dobson, Alex Romanov, Scott Mayfield, and Mike Reilly are a sneaky underrated defensive core under the correct system.
The defensive core looked a lot better under Patrick Roy, and with a full training camp under Roy, the defense could improve even more.
Related: Islanders Patrick Roy On Fans Chanting His Name: ‘They’re Heart People’
Nobody on Carolina will match Dobson’s point totals next season, and Romanov, Pelech, and Pulock have the edge defensive over Burns, Slavin, Ghostisbhere, and Walker. The losses for Carolina on defense are massive, and this is the year the Islanders will have the edge defensively.
It was an amazing regular-season comeback for Carolina’s starting goaltender Freddie Andersen. The playoffs told a different story.
However, Andersen was a massive issue in net, like Ilya Sorokin was for a greater part of the regular season for the Islanders, which was then followed by having Semyon Varlamov start in the playoffs.
The Hurricanes, like the Islanders, have a reliable backup in Pyotr Kochetkov. Brind’Amour has no issue turning to him when needed, just like Roy with Varlamov.
Expecting a better season from Sorokin, it is hard not to give the edge to the Islanders in the net. Anderson and Kotchetkov are a very solid 1A 1B duo, but Sorokin and Varlamov are just a step above.
Special teams seem to tell the difference between many teams. Carolina had a lethal power play and penalty kill all year, while the Islanders had a middle-of-the-pack power play and one of the worst penalty kills in the league.
On the power play, just like offensively, it is impossible to ignore Carolina’s significant losses upfront. The power play will still be very good, but certainly not in the top three like it was last year.
Adding Duclair will help the Islanders’ power play, but Duclair does not make them a top power play either. The advantage still goes to Carolina.
The Islanders’ penalty kill will improve drastically.
Without Cal Clutterbuck – unsigned currently – they already have to replace him on the PK, and that’s not a bad thing. It seemed when teams were moving the puck at an elite speed Clutterbuck wasn’t able to keep up.
With the Islanders’ short-handed unit able to use new guys and a new PK coach, it should not be as poor as it was last season.
So, will this be the season the Islanders surpass Carolina?
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