No big Islanders news again during this August mid-week, but Robin Lehner had an interview that shed some light on the summer when he hoped to re-sign with the Islanders while the Islanders...kept stalling. The Isles ended up signing Semyon Varlamov to a long-term deal — twice the length that was apparently on the table for Lehner, it seems — and the way it went down always hinted that the Isles were working on an alternate path while Lehner was more of a fallback
The interview was revealing both for him going into how the negotiations — or lack of negotiations, really — went down with the Islanders after he took home silverware that offseason, as well as thoughts on compensation and player commitment, and the whole saga with Marc-Andre Fleury and his “backstabbing” meme-using agent.