NHL Rumors: Islanders Trying To Free Up Space & Trade Another Defenseman

The New York Islanders had a very successful draft and it set the team up nicely for the future. Their first overall pick, Matthew Schaefer, will most likely be in the NHL next season and the team will probably be willing to give him second pairing minutes in place of Noah Dobson.

With the top-4 looking set for a while, Scott Mayfield remains as a bit of an overpayment as a third pairing d-man. While the Islanders can handle $3.5 million AAV for a third pairing defenseman, there are also more players that can play that role while getting something for him in a trade. Jeff Marek said that he thinks the Islanders are trying to move Mayfield.

Mayfield is a defense-first d-man who averaged 17 minutes per game this season, a number that dropped from 21:02 in 2021-22 to 18:46 last season, to now. He’s not the go-to defenseman for penalty killing, but he did log just over 100 minutes this season.

Mayfield blocked 105 shots and had 89 hits in 66 games, so whichever team is trading for him would know what they are getting. He has unfortunately only played close to a full season once in the past four seasons, getting into 66, 41, and 61 in the other three.

The Islanders currently have 10 forwards, five defensemen, and two goalies signed with $21 million in projected cap space to work with. They are in no desperate need to clear cap room, but retaining cap on a contract that has five full years left on it is a risk, not only for taking up the cap space, which is less of a concern with this potential trade, but using one of three retention spots for that long.

Mayfield has a full no-trade clause for two years before it turns to a 16-team no-trade list for the final three years. The Islanders aren’t going to waive him and pull a move the New York Rangers did this season, but they also can’t force a trade if Mayfield doesn’t want to. He may be looking to join a better team or play more minutes. Both can happen with a trade, so we’ll see how it plays out over the coming weeks.