Nelson Avoids Being Locked Out

It was reported earlier this week, that the New York Islanders imposed their own hard deadline for getting a deal done with restricted free agent Brock Nelson. The deadline was the start of training camp for the Islanders, which goes tomorrow, and if he wasn't signed by then, he would have to sit out the entire season. The NHL does have rules of their own in place, but those deadlines don't happen until December.

Nevertheless, the deal was done and Nelson signed a 3-year deal, reportedly worth $7.5 million.  This works out to be a $2.5 million cap hit, over those three seasons.

Nelson was a scoring dynamo at the beginning of the season, but tapered off near the end of the year.  He finished with 20 goals and 42 points in all 82 games, finished ranking 115th among all forwards in scoring.

Questions were abound about his consistency, something he'll have to address in the 2016 season, but he has a few years to work on that, before trying to hold out for more money in his next deal.

Two out of the three publications didn't really believe that Nelson was going to improve on his numbers very much, but the Sports Forecaster seems to think he could put another 10 points on this season, give or take.  I fall into the category where I don't think he'll improve any, but he won't fall off either.

To me, there wasn't enough in his game, especially late on, which would suggest that there was going to be any improvements and the team didn't make big splashes in the marketplace to help Nelson out either.  If he can last until late on in the draft, you might be in line for a bargain pick, but I don't think you'll get much more than those 40 points from him this year.