The Islanders did not wait around last season to see how the trade market developed before making their move. They pulled the trigger before the All-Star Game to bring in Bo Horvat, a thunderclap of a deal that helped remake the top six and the salary cap table alike for the Islanders.

It was not just the deal itself, which sent Anthony Beauvillier, Aatu Raty and the Isles’ 2023 first-rounder to Vancouver, that did that, but its ramifications.

It became obvious quickly after Horvat got here that keeping Josh Bailey’s $5 million cap hit around did not make sense. The deal for Pierre Engvall at the end of February might not materialize if Horvat had not been there to steady the ship after Mathew Barzal went down. Barzal, by the way, is a winger now and scoring at a career-high pace.

For all the frustrations about the Islanders’ continued belief in the core, the moves a year ago amounted to something of an on-the-fly retooling of the team’s most important offensive pieces.