Islanders winger Pierre Engvall is unlikely to play this season after undergoing ankle surgery on Tuesday, general manager Mathieu Darche told reporters today (via Andrew Gross of Newsday).
Engvall had already started the season on injured reserve after he had a hip procedure performed over the offseason. Still, he was expected to be able to return sometime around the season opener. That didn’t come to pass, and there hadn’t been an update on his status in several weeks.
Engvall will now be eligible for long-term injured reserve, meaning the Islanders can exceed the salary cap by up to his $3MM cap hit with an optimal capture. If injuries pile up, they’ll take advantage. As things stand, they don’t have enough cap space ($702,490) for a standard recall, per PuckPedia.
The lost season dots what’s been a rather disastrous run on Long Island for Engvall since he signed a seven-year, $21MM contract with the club in the 2023 offseason. He was picked up from the Maple Leafs at the previous season’s trade deadline and looked like a potential long-term top-nine piece. He averaged north of 15 minutes per game down the stretch and produced a 5-4–9 scoring line in 18 games – a 41-point clip – and comprised the second line with Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri.
In his first season under the long-term deal, Engvall’s usage remained consistent, but his production didn’t. He only managed 10 goals and 28 points in 74 games, down from the 30-plus points he’d locked in over the prior two years spent mostly in Toronto. He can naturally be a frustrating player to watch at times, given his relative lack of physicality for his 6’6″ frame, so a dropoff in scoring made for a considerable dropoff in his perceived value.
Last year, his first full season under head coach Patrick Roy, Engvall failed to reverse the slide. He became a semi-regular healthy scratch, appearing in 62 games. When dressed, his ice time dipped to under 12 minutes per game. His scoring suffered in kind, churning out an 8-7–15 line with a career-worst minus-seven rating.
After the Islanders signed Jonathan Drouin and Max Shabanov in free agency this past offseason, it was clear they weren’t penciling Engvall into a spot in the opening night lineup, even if he was going to be healthy. Before his injury designation, he was a speculative waiver candidate after passing through unclaimed twice last season.
If his recovery from ankle surgery stretches past the end of the regular season, it could prevent the Islanders from pursuing a buyout of his contract. If he’s healthy enough to be on the receiving end of one, though, it might be something they consider at a flat cost of $1MM against the cap for the next eight years compared to $3MM for the next four, although that drops to under $2MM if he’s in the minors.