A week after being traded and getting a shot on the top line with his new team, former Leaf benched and demoted

The New York Islanders are in the thick of a tight playoff race as they currently occupy the top Wild Card spot, but have played a few more games than their competitors. Adding in the fact that their best player in Matthew Barzal is out of the lineup, they need all hands on deck to keep that spot locked in.

The Islanders made the first big swing ahead of the trade deadline when they acquired Bo Horvat from the Vancouver Canucks. Then they acquired Pierre Engvall for a 3rd round pick in 2024 near the deadline and effectively waved the white flag when it came to making any additional impactful moves.

Right off the hop, the former Maple Leaf, found himself flanking Horvat and captain Anders Lee on the top line. For the Leafs ,Engvall was primarily a bottom-6 forward, but the Islanders were confident that they were getting a smooth skating, versatile, gritty, two-way forward.

He's taken part in 3 games for the Islanders, having gone without a point in each, and having his ice-time dwindle from 17:26 to 12:24 to 8:23 last night against the Pittsburgh Penguins. In fact, Engvall was actually benched for almost the entire second period. He took the first shift of the period and then was planted firmly on the bench until the 17:51 mark - for a shift that lasted 1:50.


He did however return to top-line duties to start the third period but he was dropped to the fourth line in place of Simon Holmstrom the rest of the way. The Islanders were trailing 3-1 heading into the third period before tying it late and then taking the game in overtime courtesy of Brock Nelson's 28th of the season.

Engvall couldn't seem to find his footing with the Maple Leafs and a change of scenery was best. However, he hasn't made the best first impression for his new club that desperately needs to figure out the configurations of their top-6 with Barzal out of the lineup for the foreseeable future. Safe to say the Engvall experiment hasn't gone as expected in Long Island.