This is the Kyle Palmieri that the New York Islanders were expecting when they agreed to a four-year, $20 million deal this offseason.
The 31-year-old right-winger has four goals in his last four games, including a tally in the Islanders’ 5-2 win over the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night — finally showing the kind of scoring form exhibited in recent years with the New Jersey Devils in which he averaged 26 goals over five seasons from 2015-2020.
“It’s nice that they’re going in right now,” Palmieri said. “You just try and work and generate scoring chances. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t.”
It took quite a while to get there.
Palmieri scored just once over his first 29 games this season, which included a six-week hiatus due to a lower-body injury. That wasn’t nearly the kind of production the Islanders needed from the veteran who was chosen to replace Jordan Eberle on the team’s first line next to Mathew Barzal.
“He was playing, almost feeling burdened,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. “He was trying so hard in so many areas and really nothing was happening.”
An assessment that Palmieri found 100% true.
“When things aren’t going well individually and as a team, it’s easy to kind of lose faith and not believe in yourself,” Palmieri said. “I was definitely guilty of that. After the injury there, I kind of came back, took a deep breath. There’s a lot of hockey left… I just tried to go out there and find ways to help the team win. That’s my job at the end of the day.”
His play on the first line will be imperative to the Islanders’ paper-thin playoff hopes — which currently stand at a 6% probability according to FiveThirtyEight. Especially for a team that has been so offensively challenged this season.
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While a grain of salt is to be taken from Tuesday’s result considering it came against a struggling expansion team in the Kraken, the first line’s performance — supplemented by Palmieri’s hot streak and the hard-working Zach Parise — provides the smallest inkling that Trotz has stumbled upon a promising combination to end the season with.
“I think we are a team that’s not known for putting up a lot of offense,” Trotz said of his Islanders, who average just 2.5 goals per game. “Kyle, who was signed to give us some offense… he’s doing that right now.
“He was able to let it go. We had a few conversations and he’s letting it go and he’s just playing a hard-working game. He’s getting opportunities and playing the right way…. he’s not overthinking, he’s not trying to pass it into the net.”
