Draft Combine Week: 30 Islanders Thoughts On Trades, Free Agency & NHL Draft
As NHL Draft Combine Week begins in Buffalo, here are the latest Islanders notes on potential trades, free agency, Anders Lee, Jordan Kyrou, Max Shabanov, David Rittich, and more.
This week, team executives, amateur scouts, and draft-eligible prospects will descend on Buffalo for the 2026 NHL Combine.
The media portion of the combine will take place on Friday and Saturday, as I'll be heading to Western New York on Friday afternoon.
Your support makes that possible, so I thank you.
Last year’s combine was a big one for the New York Islanders, if you remember.
Not because they were debating whether to select 17-year-old defenseman Matthew Schaefer with the first overall pick. Their decision had already been made.
Their meeting with Schaefer at the combine only reinforced what they already knew: how special the person behind the helmet was.
While the combine serves as the first opportunity for future NHL hopefuls to make an impression on potential teams, it also marks the first major gathering of NHL executives following the regular season.
General managers reconnect face-to-face, revisit trade conversations, and begin new discussions. Whether it’s player-for-player deals, draft-pick swaps, or laying the groundwork for bigger moves later in the summer, the combine often serves as a launching point.
For Islanders general manager Mathieu Darche, this will be his second combine but his first after completing a full season as an NHL general manager.
During his first season in the role, Darche made several trades in an effort to push the Islanders into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The gamble ultimately fell short, and now he enters a pivotal offseason with work to do if he wants to improve the roster for 2026-27.
The combine gives him an opportunity to begin that process: