With the trade and free agent market drying up, the New York Islanders are receiving inquiries regarding forward Mathew Barzal.
General manager Mathieu Darche has told us numerous times that his job is to listen, so this news shouldn’t shock anyone.
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Barzal, 28, who has four seasons left on his deal at $9.15 million annually, has a 22-team modified no-trade clause. That means he can only be dealt to nine teams, with many of those teams already having significant money tied up in their forward group, I’m told.
Two teams that I believe checked in on Barzal are the Dallas Stars and the Montreal Canadiens.
The Stars are dealing with pending unrestricted free agent Jason Robertson at the moment and if they can’t re-sign him, he’ll be on the move.
While Robertson doesn’t have any trade protection, he controls where he goes like Noah Dobson did last summer.
Jason Robertson’s Contract Situation Mirrors Noah Dobson’s With The Islanders
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The Stars aren’t looking for picks and prospects for Robertson as they want to continue contending for a Stanley Cup so them having interest in Barzal in a potential deal makes complete sense.
The question is would Robertson have interest in signing on Long Island?
He did play for head coach Pete DeBoer, who was hired by the Islanders with four games to go.
While the Seattle Kraken are likely an interested party, especially after trying to land Artemi Panarin ahead of the 2026 NHL Trade Deadline and striking out on Robertson, I don’t believe that Barzal would be interested in going there.
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The Islanders don’t have interest in rebuilding and have previously told the Canadiens “no” when they called about Bo Horvat.
Moving Barzal for picks and prospects makes no real sense, even less sense with DeBoer aboard.
