how four teenagers changed how lou thinks about young men

If Lou Lamoriello weren’t the oldest general manager in the league, he’d still be the most old-school. No person atop an NHL staff directory has more tried-and-true methods and rules for running a tight ship.

Lamoriello has hardly seen any reason to deviate from a plan he first put in place with the Devils three decades ago and has now carried into his third GM job. And yet, the Islanders are unique in the league right now: They have the most teenagers in the NHL/AHL, with four under-20 players either on the Isles roster (Noah Dobson) or in Bridgeport (Oliver Wahlstrom, Simon Holmstrom, Bode Wilde). Between Lamoriello and Barry Trotz, there is a wealth of experience that tells both men never to rush young prospects to the pros — yet here we are.

“In these cases, all four did end up under our total control, but all with separate sets of circumstances as to why,” Lamoriello said. “It certainly is a newer situation for me, but all of them had different reasons for why they’re here.”

Dobson has been the most visible, since he’s been with the Islanders since training camp. There’s a reason for that, too — Dobson is not AHL-eligible, having been drafted out of the Canadian junior league. If he were able to go to Bridgeport, there’s no doubt he would be there with the other three teenagers and Thomas Hickey would be the Isles’ No. 7 defenseman. But Lamoriello and Trotz adjusted their plans for the 19-year-old to better handle his development.

How does that figure when Dobson has been a healthy scratch for 12 of the Isles’ first 18 games, as he most likely will be again on Saturday in Philadelphia?

“What he had accomplished in junior, we felt it would have been difficult for him to challenge himself there for another year and do anything but develop bad habits,” Lamoriello said. “It’s natural to have that happen when you play 30, even 35 minutes a night, and that was happening even at the end of his last season there — you’re tired, you’re playing lots of hockey and things can creep in.

“So the alternative to sending him back was to have him here and see exactly what he can handle and what he can’t. To this point, he’s handled everything given to him. So this development situation is best for him.”

It helps that Dobson carries himself like a much older player. After winning back-to-back Memorial Cups with different QMJHL clubs — and traveling to Austria to play for the Red Bull club as a 15-year-old — Dobson has seen and done a bit more than the average teenage prospect.

So assimilating into an NHL room and an NHL lineup hasn’t been so tough. And getting into games seems less on him than on the six veterans in front of him. At 13-3-1, Trotz hasn’t been inclined to change the defense.

“It’s mostly about consistency for me right now,” Dobson said. “Just trying to bring the same effort and energy to every game, every shift. That’s the biggest difference you see — the guys in the NHL never take a second off.”

Dobson’s biggest in-game adjustment, other than perhaps playing more on the left side than he had last season, has been making sure he keeps his shifts tight. As the clear No. 1 defenseman with Acadie-Bathurst two years ago and Rouyn-Noranda last year, he could pretty much dictate his own shift lengths.

“Yeah, now you need to get on and get off when it’s time,” he said. “I probably had a little more free rein last year, just come off when you’re tired. But you have to be ready to go every shift here.”

Wahlstrom got a nine-game look with the Isles — and they went 9-0-0 with the 19-year-old in the lineup — but his ice time gradually decreased. That coincided with an important marker on the horizon: If Wahlstrom had played 10 NHL games, his entry-level contract would have activated for the year. Staying below 10 for the entire season means Wahlstrom’s contract can technically start next year, a help to the Islanders in terms of cap management down the road.

That Wahlstrom is in the pros at all this year is a surprise. He was headed to Boston College when Lamoriello selected him 11th overall in June of 2018, one pick ahead of Dobson. Lamoriello spent nearly two decades as coach and athletic director at Providence College; there may no bigger fan of college development than Lamoriello, who encouraged Wahlstrom to stay at BC even after a ho-hum freshman year.

But Wahlstrom and his camp convinced Lamoriello to give the kid a look at the end of last season. Wahlstrom produced 2-1-3 in five regular-season games with Bridgeport, then 2-2-4 in five playoff games.

“How we saw him last year, we thought he might be better if we had him here in the organization,” Lamoriello said. “Once he came in and how he played, that solidified our thinking.”

Wilde, drafted out of the U.S. development program and thus AHL-eligible right away, was another young prospect that Lamoriello didn’t see turning pro so soon. Wilde had an outstanding year for Saginaw of the OHL (after deciding not to go the college route with Michigan) and the Islanders were going to make a call on him after seeing the big, skilled defenseman in camp.

“He came from (Saginaw’s) camp and unfortunately he was hurt,” Lamoriello said. “They told us it would be just a couple weeks, but it was a high-ankle sprain, which is one of the toughest injuries to have. So that delayed the process a bit with him.”

Wilde rehabbed while the Islanders went through camp, casting his chances of sticking even in the AHL in doubt. But Wilde will make his AHL debut this weekend; he still can go back to Saginaw, but Lamoriello doesn’t see a need to decide that until Wilde plays a few Bridgeport games.

Then, there’s Holmstrom, the most pleasant surprise of the four. Drafted 23rd overall after playing just one game in the Swedish Hockey League last season due to injuries, Holmstrom came to prospect camp hurt, an injury suffered during his offseason work in Sweden. Once he got on the ice, however, he opened lots of eyes.

Once Holmstrom presented the possibility that he’d be comfortable staying in North America, the Islanders decided to keep him here. He has three goals in 16 games with the Sound Tigers.

“He wasn’t thought of by his team in Sweden (HV71) the way we thought of him here,” Lamoriello said. “So we thought he would be better off here.”

Lamoriello may be old school, but he understands the realities of today’s NHL. Look back through his many homegrown talents with the Devils and you’ll find only two who never played in the AHL. Even Scott Gomez and Scott Niedermayer, both first-round picks, went back to their junior clubs after their draft years for more seasoning.

In Toronto on Lamoriello’s watch, only Auston Matthews went straight to the NHL as an 18-year-old. Mitch Marner, arguably the most talented Leaf, went back to junior following his draft year and a superb Toronto training camp.

But here the Islanders are, with a 77-year-old GM and four teens on the pro rosters. Managing all those kids calls for some adjustments.

“We’ll have our strength coach go to Bridgeport a bit more to work with them, our skating person in one spot more,” Lamoriello said. “Communication, especially with the young players in Bridgeport, is a daily thing with Chris (Lamoriello, Sound Tigers GM). And the environment around them is very important — that’s why we have veterans like (Steve) Bernier, like (Colin) McDonald, like Hickey and now (Andrew) Ladd will be there, too. It’s no different than sending them off to college. You want them to be surrounded by the right people.”