Lou Lamoriello gives glimpse of Islanders offseason plan: there will be change

SAN JOSE, Calif.— Lou Lamoriello did not give off the sense of someone satisfied with how the trade deadline went when he spoke to reporters before the Islanders beat the Sharks 4-2 on Saturday.Though happy with the return, namely prospect Calum Ritchie, the Islanders GM confirmed he would have rather kept Brock Nelson, but traded him because the team’s contract overtures were rebuffed.

And though he’s trying to extend Kyle Palmieri, Lamoriello will be looking for more change — namely to make the Islanders younger — over the summer, when Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Anders Lee’s names will likely be atop the rumor mill.“If we could have gotten younger and better, other than draft picks, we would have done it without question,” Lamoriello said.“We felt that where a few of our players are — when I say a few, several of our players we could have made moves with — they would be better done at a different time.

What we need to infuse in the lineup, those players would be available.That’s a decision we made.“Along the way we also tried to look at this season.

We’re four points out [as of Saturday morning], not to give up in any way whatsoever on the guys in that room, without hurting what the mission was to go into the trade deadline.And it ended up the way it was.

But I can assure you that if there were other players, not of the caliber we got but close to that, there would have been a lot more moves.”Lamoriello is not going near the word “rebuild” — which he called a decade-long process and has no interest in doing.Retool, though, might be more accurate.

“I can’t find the best word for it, but we know we have to do more than what just transpired,” Lamoriello said.“We feel very strongly on that.”Palmieri, it sounds like, will be a part of whatever comes next as his camp works with Lamoriello on an extension, the Islanders having elected to keep the pending free agent on Friday morning.

So too will Ritchie, the center acquire...