Rangers archrival finally parts ways with GM Lou Lamoriello after missing playoffs
Lou Lamoriello’s legendary career as an NHL executive and New York Rangers nemesis may have come to an end Wednesday when the New York Islanders said in a statement that the 82-year-old Hockey Hall of Famer’s contract as president and general manager would not be renewed.
No replacement was announced. The Islanders said operating partner John Collins will lead a search to find the next GM.
“The Islanders extend a heartfelt thank you to Lou Lamoriello for his extraordinary commitment over the past seven years,” the team said in a statement. “His dedication to the team is in line with his Hall of Fame career.”
The Islanders missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs this season, finishing 35-35-12 while dealing with a host of injuries to key players. Their most dynamic forward, Mathew Barzal, was limited to 30 games and didn’t play after sustaining a broken kneecap Feb. 1. The defense corps was so injury-riddled that the Islanders at times had three players (Tony DeAngelo, Scott Perunovich and Adam Boqvist) on the blue line who weren’t with the team for the first half of the season.
They were officially eliminated from playoff contention with a 4-3 shootout loss at the Philadelphia Flyers on April 12 and finished sixth in the Metropolitan Division. Special teams were a huge problem – the Islanders were 31st on both the power play (72.2 percent) and penalty kill (72.2 percent).
Notorious among Islanders fans for doubling down on his aging core, Lamoriello finally gave in a little this season, when he traded veteran center Brock Nelson to the Colorado Avalanche and received highly-regard forward prospect Calum Ritchie and a conditional 2026 first-round draft pick in return.
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Rangers nemesis Lou Lamoriello out as Islanders GM
The Islanders were a mess when they brought in Lamoriello to run the team on May 22, 2018. They finished seventh in the Metropolitan Division, ahead of only the Rangers, and surrendered an NHL-worst 296 goals in 2017-18.
But Lamoriello quickly turned things around, hiring Barry Trotz as coach just weeks after Trotz led the Washington Capitals to their first Stanley Cup championship. Despite losing star center John Tavares to free agency in July 2018, the Islanders made the playoffs in 2018-19 and swept the Pittsburgh Penguins in the opening round before being swept by the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Islanders then advanced to the Stanley Cup Semifinals in 2020 and 2021, losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning in six and seven games, respectively. Their 1-0 loss to the Lightning in Game 7 during the 2021 postseason was the closest they came to returning to the Stanley Cup Final since their glory days in the early 1980s, when the Islanders won four consecutive championships before losing to the Edmonton Oilers in the 1984 Final.
They missed the playoffs in 2021-22, partly because they were forced to begin the season with a 13-game road trip before opening UBS Arena, then made the postseason in 2022-23 and 2023-24, losing to Carolina in the first round each time.
Lamoriello’s 1,470 wins as GM of the New Jersey Devils, Toronto Maple Leafs and Islanders are second in NHL history behind David Poile’s 1,533. His 325 Stanley Cup Playoff games are the most by any NHL general manager, and he’s second in postseason wins with 172, behind Glen Sather’s 187.
His success largely came at the Rangers expense since the each of his three teams also reside in the Eastern Conference, and the Devils and Islanders are bitter division rivals.
Most of those playoff wins came during his tenure with the Devils, who won the Stanley Cup three times (1995, 2000, 2003) under Lamoriello after he became team president and GM in 1987. He helped build teams that reached 100 points 13 times, won nine division titles, qualified for the playoffs 21 times, made the Stanley Cup Final five times and won three titles.
New Jersey qualified for the playoffs in 13 consecutive seasons from 1997-2010 and was 1,093-759-179 with 109 ties in the regular season and 136-116 in the playoffs during his time in New Jersey.
Lamoriello actually coached the Devils for 50 games in 2005-06 and again for the final three games of the 2006-07 season, with New Jersey qualifying for the playoffs each time. He left the Devils on July 23, 2015, and was named GM of the Maple Leafs the same day. His Toronto teams were 118-95-33 in three seasons and improved each year – winning the 2016 NHL Draft Lottery and using the No. 1 pick on Auston Matthews.
The Maple Leafs announced April 30, 2018, that Lamoriello would not return but he remained as a senior adviser before joining the Islanders.
In addition, Lamoriello was GM of the United States team that won the World Cup of Hockey in 1996 and played at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a Builder in 2009, and into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame three years later.
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