Josh Bailey’s place in Islanders history might ensure that no one else wears No. 12 again.
He is one of just three players in club history to play over 1,000 games for the Islanders, ranks third in franchise history in assists and seventh in points.
He’s been with the Islanders for 15 seasons, from the Coliseum to Barclays Center to UBS Arena, through the muck of rebuilds and Cup-contending teams of recent years.
But after being made a healthy scratch for the duration of the team’s first-round loss to the Hurricanes, as well as playing just four games over the regular season’s final month, it is an open question whether Bailey has played his last game for the Isles — a fact he himself acknowledged at breakup day on Monday.
“I don’t know,” Bailey said, asked about his future on Long Island. “It’s a position, certainly, I wouldn’t want to be in. This has been home for a long time, it will continue to be home after hockey, regardless of what happens. But yeah, obviously a little unknown right now.”
The thing he did say definitively, though, is that he doesn’t want to be with the Islanders if it means being healthy-scratched regularly.
“As far as what my role is, obviously if I’m gonna be sitting in the stands a lot, that’s not something I want to do,” Bailey said.
The 33-year-old is set to count for $5 million against the cap next season, the last of a six-year, $30 million extension signed in 2018. And it is plainly hard to see where he fits into the team’s depth chart.
It’s hard to see how the Islanders could bring all of their wingers back, but even with that stipulation, making space in the lineup for Bailey wouldn’t be easy among a positional group in which Hudson Fasching, Simon Holmstrom and Oliver Wahlstrom would all likely begin training camp ahead of him on the depth chart, to say nothing of pending unrestricted free agents or prospects.
If the Islanders can’t trade Bailey to a team with salary-cap space, perhaps with an asset attached, a buyout could be in play.
Such a move would save the Islanders $2.33 million against the cap next season, while adding a $1.16 million hit in 2024-25.
Bailey said he has yet to speak with general manager Lou Lamoriello or head coach Lane Lambert, though he confirmed he plans to play next season, whether with the Islanders or elsewhere.
If this is the end, it would mark a drastic shift in the composition of the Isles’ dressing room, where Bailey has been a fixture for well over a decade.
“He’s become one of my best friends,” Cal Clutterbuck said. “He’s been a leader on this team for his entire career. Came in as a young kid and really was probably one of three guys that went through the full transformation from what the Islanders looked like in 2008 to what we look like now. Probably the biggest part of that, the most constant part. … Just very fortunate to be able to have a teammate like that for 10 years.”
Asked whether he would want to return if Lambert — who made him a healthy scratch in what would have been his 999th game with the club, forcing him to play his 1,000th game on the road — is back, Bailey said he didn’t know.
“I think [we] always had a mutual respect for one another,” Bailey said. “I think looking back on it now, it’s rather telling, getting scratched four or five games into the year before my 1,000th game to where we end up at the end of a season. I think it makes a lot more sense now.”
Bailey admitted that his play this season — he finished with eight goals and 17 assists — wasn’t always up to standard.
But it was clear the 33-year-old still feels like he has more to give, and that he was less than thrilled with how the season ended with the Islanders.
“I think I’ve always thought of myself as an Islander and wanted to play my last game as an Islander,” Bailey said. “Who knows what it holds now.”