Pat Pickens
The New York Islanders landed the best available head coaching candidate.
Unfortunately for the Islanders, they hired Pete DeBoer too late to salvage the 2025-26 season.
The Islanders are set up for future success with the defensive-minded DeBoer and Calder Trophy shoo-in Matthew Schaefer. But they were eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention after falling 4-1 to the Montreal Canadiens on Sunday night — New York’s sixth regulation loss in its past seven games.
The Isles were in second place in the Metro less than three weeks ago and appeared to be fighting for home-ice advantage in their first-round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
But after going 4-9 in their past 13 games, New York now sits in sixth in the division and will be home for the playoffs for the second straight season.
Pete DeBoer Couldn’t Work Enough Magic to Save the Islanders
The Islanders have been defensively stout and are renowned for elite goaltending in Ilya Sorokin. But general manager Mathieu Darche fired previous coach Patrick Roy because that was slipping.
DeBoer, so renowned as a defensive coach that he was on the bench coaching the D-men for Canada at the Milan/Cortina Olympics, had about three days to try and inspire change.
It worked in DeBoer’s first game, a 5-3 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, where the Isles outshot Toronto 44-16. But the new-coach bump ultimately was just one game, since New York faltered to the Ottawa Senators and Canadiens over the weekend.
“I feel for them,” DeBoer said after Sunday’s loss. “I’ve been here for three games in a week, and I’m disappointed. They put in 81 games here and seven months. That’s a lot of blood, sweat and work that went into that.
“When the lights go out on a season, it’s never easy after you put in that kind of time.”
The Isles’ season-closing game against the Carolina Hurricanes could be Anders Lee‘s final game in a New York uniform. The New York captain was especially disappointed to see this season end.
“There’s not a lot of words, without swearing, for how I feel right now and how the group feels,” Lee said. “”We came up short after putting in everything we had toward getting in this year.
“For the most part [we] were in a playoff position and put ourselves in a great spot at the [trade] deadline and did everything we could. … We lost some games and missed out on a few points and put ourselves in a position where we had to win four in a row at the end to win tonight to keep ourselves alive. It’s just disappointing.”
Pete DeBoer is Confident in the Islanders’ Future
The Islanders are in an odd place.
Previous general manager Lou Lamoriello leveraged away draft capital to try and win now, and the result is the league’s sixth-oldest roster, per Elite Prospects. The Islanders are the only team in the top-7 oldest rosters that is not participating in the playoffs.
Darche had further leveraged some of their future by trading a first-round pick and two third-round selections for Brayden Schenn, Carson Soucy and Ondrej Palat at the deadline and will now have just one pick in the first three rounds at the 2026 NHL Draft.
Still, there is cause for optimism on Long Island. Soucy was the only rental that Darche targeted, and the first-round pick in the Schenn deal is likely to be No. 32 overall since it was the Colorado Avalanche’s pick acquired in the Brock Nelson trade last year.
“We know we’ve got a lot of work to do here,” DeBoer said. “But there’s a lot of good things too.”
Those good things include Schaefer, who looks like a franchise blueliner and will turn 19 on Sept. 7. Fellow 2025 first-round pick Emil Heineman scored 22 goals in his rookie season.
Plus, they’ll have DeBoer for a full season. Like most coaches, DeBoer typically has his best success in Year 1, since he has twice reached the Stanley Cup Final, with the New Jersey Devils and San Jose Sharks, and twice reached the conference finals in his first season behind the bench.
With a full offseason, and a head start since he was on the Islanders bench for these four games, DeBoer feels good about heading into 2026-27.
“I’m going to be way ahead from where I would’ve been if I had come in the summer, for sure,” DeBoer said. “Is it enough time to have all the answers? No. But I’ve got a lot more answers than I would’ve showing up in training camp without having this experience with this group.
“I’m excited to start fresh and have a camp and get to work with them. There’s some exciting pieces here. There’s no doubt we have work left to do.”
