{"id":895721,"date":"2026-06-27T04:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T04:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/895721\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T04:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T04:57:17","slug":"islanders-have-so-much-to-weigh-with-potential-anders-lee-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/895721\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders have so much to weigh with potential Anders Lee exit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The door is not closed, not yet, not officially, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/06\/03\/sports\/islanders-captain-anders-lee-could-be-preparing-to-test-free-agency\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">on Anders Lee to return to the Islanders<\/a>. No one is eager to see the captain leave, not when he\u2019s just 77 games away from becoming the fourth player ever to hit 1,000 games in blue and orange, not when his leadership still means so much to this team, not when he\u2019s still a perfectly productive player, scoring 19 times last year at age 35.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Maybe Lee\u2019s camp and Mathieu Darche find a way between now and Wednesday to keep him on Long Island. But all the noise and rumors leading into Day 1 of the NHL draft on Friday indicated that one side or another would have to compromise, likely on terms as opposed to dollars.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll see,\u201d Darche said Friday night after <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/06\/26\/sports\/islanders-take-malte-gustafsson-at-no-13-in-2026-nhl-draft\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">using the 13th pick to select Swedish defenseman Malte Gustafsson<\/a>. \u201cJuly 1 is Wednesday. I talked with the agent [Neil Sheehy] yesterday. \u2026 Still talking. We\u2019ll see what happens in the next three days.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39815227\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/27-skates-puck-first-period-118217692.jpg\" alt=\"New York Islanders left wing Anders Lee (27) skates with the puck during a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.\" class=\"wp-image-39815227\"  \/>Anders Lee skates with the puck during the Islanders\u2019 January 2026 game. Corey Sipkin for the NY Post<\/p>\n<p>Darche proved last summer with Noah Dobson that when he draws a line in the sand, he won\u2019t step over it. Lee, an NHLPA rep for the Islanders who would be one of the top free agents available should he make it to market \u2014 albeit in an underwhelming class \u2014 will be understandably wary of doing the same. It\u2019s been clear since breakup day that things could end in an amicable separation.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The door is not closed, not yet, not officially, on Anders Lee to return to the Islanders. No&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":895722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,186483,28367,405,403,1301,5226,5225,293,11249,5228,5227,62,2632,2225,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-895721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-anders-lee","tag-mathieu-darche","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-free-agency","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-sports-plus","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116820303329838941","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}