Islanders set for long game of musical chairs with defensive room this offseason

Here’s a bet that might actually be safer than Aleksander Barkov winning a second-straight Selke Trophy: The Islanders won’t carry nine defensemen on their roster to start next season.Which means that Thursday in Columbus, Ohio, when five of their six blue liners in the season finale were pending free agents, was almost assuredly the swan song for part of the group that includes Noah Dobson, Scott Perunovich, Mike Reilly, Tony DeAngelo and Adam Boqvist.Other than Dobson, who’s very much a known commodity, the match against the Blue Jackets amounted to a final audition for that group, with Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock being held out of a meaningless Game 82 and Alexander Romanov out with illness for a second straight game.Romanov is a pending restricted free agent, too, and even Scott Mayfield — the only defenseman in the Islanders’ lineup Thursday who is not on an expiring deal, with five seasons left on his contract — cannot be treated as 100 percent safe after frequent healthy scratches down the stretch, which could lead the Islanders to consider a buyout.And, because all of that isn’t enough, there’s also Isaiah George to consider.The 21-year-old was sent down at the end of January after playing 33 games for the Isles, but showed more than enough to believe he’ll have a good shot to make the roster out of camp next season.Of the trio that was brought in when a glut of injuries hit the Islanders at the end of January — DeAngelo, Boqvist and Perunovich — DeAngelo, a pending UFA, has the best case to return next season.

He’s the only one who has stayed in the lineup every night and has been on the top pair for most of that span, averaging 23:26 while accumulating 19 points in 36 games.That was enough to put DeAngelo in a tie with Dobson for the Islanders’ highest-scoring defenseman this season on a per-game basis, and it would be no surprise for player and team to commit to each other for another season after the Islanders pulled DeAngelo b...