Six Key Islanders Remain Unavailable as Training Camp Approaches

The Islanders head into the offseason with a roster health problem that makes everything else secondary. Barzal, Engvall, Palmieri, Pulock, Romanov, and Varlamov are all unavailable — six contributors who, when healthy, form the spine of what New York is trying to be. Pierre Engvall is the only one with an active Injured Reserve designation in the last three weeks, but the broader list is long enough that the front office cannot sketch out its opening-night lineup with any confidence.

That matters more here than it might elsewhere. Last season's 43–39 finish leaned heavily on close-game execution — the Islanders won 63 percent of their one-goal games, a rate well above their overall winning percentage. When the margin tightened in the final stretch, the offense dried up and the team went 3–7. A roster already dependent on things going right has now lost the ability to confirm whether its core is even available.

The front office has kept moving. DeAngelo is re-signed, Jefferies is locked up on a one-year deal to avoid arbitration, and Tikkanen got a raise to stay in the pipeline. Those are reasonable depth moves. My read is that none of them change the fundamental equation: the Islanders cannot evaluate what they actually have until they know which of those six are ready for camp and which are not.