Hamonic balance

Isles star drops trade request, will return

The emotional swing of the Islanders’ season came to one final crescendo Tuesday, when stalwart defenseman Travis Hamonic fought back tears and declared his love for the organization in the same breath with which he rescinded his trade request and said he was staying.

Hamonic, 25, had asked for a trade before training camp, revealing Tuesday it was because a close family member was dealing with a serious health condition back home outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and he wanted to be closer. Yet after general manager Garth Snow could not find a suitable return all season, Hamonic said that condition of his family member recently has “stabi- lized,” and it has given him the chance to stay with the only NHL organization he has ever known.

“It was a tough, trying year,” Hamonic said at the team’s woebegone (and soon actually to be gone) training center in Syosset, Long Island, after coming in early before the team’s exit meetings to sit down with Snow and coach Jack Capuano to tell them the news.

“I had the support of organization and teammates behind me through the whole thing, and I couldn’t be more thankful for that. In the last little while, we learned that the situation has stabilized itself. First and foremost, just relief for that, thankful for that, and pretty grateful.

“With that, I love being an Islander. It’s my home here. My family loves it. We enjoy living here. I obviously enjoy my teammates. I love them. I love this organization. I said it the other day — being an Islander is one of the best things I do with my life. I could not be more eager for next year’s training camp and looking forward to a good summer of trying to get healthy and hit the ground running next year.”

Snow has a rather large weight off his shoulders, not having to move Hamonic to a limited number of teams that would have fulfilled the request. With his relatively modest $3.857 million salary-cap hit for each of the next four seasons, to go along with his terrific performance in the postseason, Hamonic would have been a coveted trade piece with much expected in return.

But now he will return to an Islanders team with high expectations after they finished their first season at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center with a second-round ouster at the hands of the Lightning. The Isles won a postseason series for the first time since 1993 — a step in the right direction. But it also allowed for a full view of how many more difficult steps are needed to actually win the Stanley Cup.

There is still a ton of uncertainty concerning next season’s roster, which includes the pending unrestricted free agencies of Kyle Okposo, Frans Nielsen and Matt Martin. New ownership also will take the reins come July 1.

But one of those uncertainties no longer is Hamonic.