Islanders take inspiration from Yankees
Character and work ethic are critical for new president Lamoriello
EAST MEADOW, N.Y. — Barry Trotz’s snow-white goatee is gone.
He works for Lou Lamoriello now, and Lamoriello prefers that his employees adopt the Yankee Look — clean-shaven, hair trimmed, neatly dressed. It is the way George Steinbrenner wanted his New York Yankees to look and the way they still look today.
Lamoriello and Trotz’s cleanshaven faces are evidence of the New York Islanders’ extreme makeover this off-season.
The first step in the franchise renovation was bringing on Lamoriello, 75, as president in May. A few weeks later, he fired coach Doug Weight and general manager Garth Snow and took over Snow’s role.
Two weeks after he led the Washington Capitals to their first Stanley Cup title in June, Trotz became coach of the Islanders.
Trotz, who left Washington in a contract dispute, said he would not have joined the Islanders had Lamoriello not been in charge. Trotz, in fact, thought he would take a year off after coaching the Capitals for four years. He knew Lamoriello only well enough to say hello at league functions.
But when Lamoriello calls, you listen. Nine years have passed since he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, his occupation’s lifetime achievement award, but Lamoriello still thinks hockey is challenging and fun.
“If hockey isn’t any fun, why do you do it?” Lamoriello said after a recent practice.
With the New Jersey Devils, he built a model franchise that rolled to three Stanley Cup titles in nine seasons. The Devils had a no-frills structure centred on teamwork and work ethic.
Good grooming is part of the commitment.
So Trotz, 56, decided he was all in, happily adopting the Yankee Look with other Islanders employees. Trotz rubbed his bare chin after a recent practice, then smiled and said: “I’m OK with that. It separates us from everyone. Lou gets it totally. Everyone pushes boundaries on everything.”
Not much is expected this season from the Islanders, who open at Carolina on Thursday. They lost their stalwart centre and captain, John Tavares, who signed a seven-year, $77-million free-agent contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs, his hometown team.
Tavares, 28, scored 272 goals in nine seasons with the Islanders and in 2016 led them to their first playoff-series victory in 23 years. Lamoriello offered an eight-year contract. Tavares decided to sign with Toronto. Lamoriello conceded it was a big blow. But, he said, “you move on.”
“There’s no question of the quality of player he was,” Lamoriello added. “We offered him eight years. That in itself says what you think of him. But you go forward. It challenges other people.”
In 2012, when Lamoriello was the Devils’ general manager, he lost the high-scoring forward Zach Parise to the Minnesota Wild in free agency shortly after the Devils lost in the Stanley Cup final. “Zach wanted to be with his dad,” Lamoriello said, referring to J.P. Parise, a former NHL player who died in 2015. “John went home. I don’t think there’s anything else to do with that. We wanted him to stay.”
But Tavares is gone, and Lamoriello and Trotz will do the best with what they have. Forward Anders Lee scored 40 goals last season. Mathew Barzal, a 21year-old centre, won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie. Forward Josh Bailey had 71 points in his 10th season.
“It’s been different,” Bailey said of training camp, “but at the same time, we knew that going into camp.”
They knew, for example, about the Yankee Look.
“The discipline is a big thing,” Bailey said. “We can all buy into that.”
In May 2015, Lamoriello announced that he would step aside as the Devils’ general manager and be replaced by Ray Shero. Lamoriello planned to stay on as the Devils’ president, but he jumped to the Maple Leafs two months later to become their general manager.
He said he made a three-year commitment to the Maple Leafs’ president, Brendan Shanahan, the first player Lamoriello drafted as the Devils’ general manager in 1987.
He could have stayed with Toronto for five more years as a special adviser.
Then the Islanders offered him a job. He said he had to think about it for a while. But he realized he wanted to be more than a “special adviser.”
“If you feel good healthwise,” he said, “and you think your mind is good, what else are you going to do?”
The loss of Tavares notwithstanding, Lamoriello said, the Islanders are a little ahead of the young Maple Leafs team that he joined in 2015. The Islanders, who missed the playoffs the last two seasons, could be rejuvenated.
“No preconceived notions,” Lamoriello said. “They all have a fresh start with a new coaching staff.”
Matt Martin, a punishing veteran forward, started his career with the Islanders and then jumped to the Maple Leafs to sign a four-year contract in 2016. By the end of last year, Martin was a regular healthy scratch. Lamoriello made a deal to bring him back to Long Island. (The team itself will be back on Long Island more, playing 20 of their 41 homes games, including the last 10 at their former home, Nassau Coliseum.)
“I’m a big fan of his,” Martin said of Lamoriello. “He has rules in place, but you can ask him why. You can go up and ask him a question, and he’ll give you a straight answer. At the end of the day, it’s all about putting the best product on the ice.”
“You have to change every day,” Lamoriello said. “The game has changed. It’s a much faster game. But the one thing that has remained constant is character and work ethic.”