Six Key Islanders Remain Unavailable as Training Camp Approaches

Barzal, Engvall, Palmieri, Pulock, Romanov, and Varlamov are all on injured reserve or listed out heading into camp. That's the team's leading scorer, two of its top defensive minutes-eaters, and its starting goaltender, among others. The front office is trying to build a functional training camp roster without knowing when any of them come back.

The Jefferies signing last week was the most recent move — a one-year deal to avoid arbitration, the kind of depth preservation that makes sense when you don't know your opening-night lineup yet. DeAngelo is back on a two-year deal, and Malte Gustafsson was drafted and signed, though he stays in Sweden for now. The pieces are being gathered, but the core is still largely unavailable.

What makes this harder is the context from last season. The 43–39 finish looked reasonable until you noticed how it was built — 27 wins in one-goal games, a rate well above the team's overall winning percentage. When the margin tightened in the final stretch, the offense dried up and the goals-against climbed. That's the team that now heads into camp short-handed. The health situation isn't just an inconvenience; it lands on a roster that was already thinner than its record suggested.