2024 NHL futures predictions: Islanders gain steam under Patrick Roy

Lou Lamoriello hasn’t lost his touch.

On Saturday, the 81-year-old Islanders general manager announced the team had fired head coach Lane Lambert and replaced him with Patrick Roy.

While the decision to move on from Lambert was not a shock given the team’s bewildering defensive form, what came next left the hockey world stunned.

Nobody had the Hall of Fame goaltender on their short list of candidates. Nobody except for Lamoriello. 

It could be just what the doctor ordered for a team that was in desperate need of a jolt (and some structure). 

It’s been a while since Roy was last behind an NHL bench, so anybody who claims they know what kind of coach he’ll be is getting ahead of themselves.

But it is fair to be confident that the four-time Stanley Cup champion will get more out of the Islanders than Lambert had in recent weeks. 

Coming into the season, most pundits believed that the Islanders would be a strong defensive team, but would struggle to score enough to contend in a deep Eastern Conference.

That script has flipped after the first half, as the Isles boast one of the NHL’s leakiest defenses.

The Islanders allow the second-most shots on goal per game, rank 29th in high-danger scoring chances conceded, 29th in expected goals allowed and 28th in penalty kill percentage.

Astonishingly — thanks to some strong goaltending, terrific individual offensive performances and mediocre seasons from other teams in the conference — they’ve been able to stay in the playoff mix in the East despite their calamitous approach to defending. 

Fixing the Islanders’ defensive foibles won’t be an easy task, but if Roy can sort them out there’s a real case to be made that the Islanders can surge up the standings quickly.

If the Isles could play at a 90-point pace despite being one of the worst defensive teams in the league, what kind of pace could they play at with a serviceable defense? 

So, what are the betting takeaways here?

For one, I feel pretty confident that we’ll start to see the Isles become more of an “Under team” than they were in the first half of the season.

The Over cashed in 60 percent of Islander games under Lambert (27-16-2), but with Roy put in place to get the team to cut down on mistakes and shore up things in their own zone, it seems likely we’ll start to see that Over/Under record even out as we head down the stretch.

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As for the futures markets, there is a case to be made that now is the time to take a shot on the Islanders to make some noise.

It looked as if the East would go through either the Rangers or Bruins, but the former has come back down to earth, allowing the B’s and Panthers to establish themselves as the conference heavyweights.

But it’s really wide open behind those two teams and as we saw last spring with the Panthers, getting hot at the right moment is all it takes some years.

The Islanders are currently +190 at DraftKings to make the postseason, 35/1 to win the Eastern Conference and 70/1 to win the Stanley Cup.

If you have any interest in the Isles making a run, I’d skip right to the bigger numbers.

The logic is that if the Isles are able to course-correct under Roy and play well enough to get into the playoffs, it would mean that they would enter the tournament as one of the form teams in the NHL.

That, blended with their world-class goaltending, would make them a really tough out in a best-of-seven series.