Islanders fire coach Trotz

As a disappointing Islanders season beset by scheduling and COVID-19 hurdles ground to its inevitable conclusion with the team’s first playoff miss since 2018, coach Barry Trotz took to describing it as “bizarre.”

Seemingly as strange was president and general manager Lou Lamoriello’s decision on Monday to relieve Trotz of his coaching duties after four seasons, only one of which was not impacted by the pandemic.

“It will be a tremendous understatement to say that this wasn’t an easy decision to make,” Lamoriello said in a teleconference. “Unfortunately, it was my role to make the best decisions for the organization going forward. And I believe that this group of players needs a new voice.”

Lamoriello added there is no timetable for hiring a new coach and, currently, all of Trotz’s staff — associate coach Lane Lambert, assistant coaches John Gruden and Jim Hiller, director of goaltending Mitch Korn and goalie coach Piero Greco — remain under contract.

Lamoriello said he could not answer what type of “new voice” the Islanders need and also wouldn’t detail why he believed the Islanders needed one.

“Any type of decision like this doesn’t happen overnight, it’s over a period of time,” Lamoriello said. “Certainly, all the extenuating circumstances that transpired this year, uncontrollable by everyone or anyone, is taken into consideration. But I’d rather not get into any of the reasons because that’s my job upon the information that I have and I have the experience to make these type of decisions.”

Lamoriello, just under a month after joining the Islanders, hired Trotz on June 21, 2018, shortly after he had guided the Capitals to that organization’s first Stanley Cup.

Trotz, who turns 60 on July 15, went 152-102-34 in his four seasons with the Islanders. Trotz started his NHL career with the expansion Predators in 1998 and coached 15 seasons in Nashville before four in Washington. He has a career mark of 914-670-60-168 in 1,812 games.

Trotz