from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

No, of course Lou Lamoriello did not seek his players’ permission to dismiss Barry Trotz, are you kidding me?

But you also couldn’t be more naive if you believe that feedback elicited during the players’ exit meetings did not influence the Islanders’ supreme hockey leader’s decision to cut ties with the coach who had brought the franchise its greatest run of success since the Dynasty.

Those meetings, according to sources with knowledge of the events, did not include the threat of mutiny. But we are told that enough players — and ones who mattered — expressed frustration over the team’s single-dimensional, safety-first, safety-last, grinding approach to the 82-game marathon in this era in which high-end skilled athletes dominate the regular season.

Chances are that these conversations ratified Lamoriello’s independent, eye-test analysis rather than opening his eyes to fissures that might have developed during this longest season.

When it comes to Lamoriello and coaches, it is never about what has been accomplished in the past. It is always about whether Lamoriello believes he has a coach who can take his team to the next level. The next level always means the Stanley Cup.

Even though Trotz has already won one Cup, with Washington in 2018, that mattered about as much as it did to Lamoriello when he fired Larry Robinson in New Jersey a year and a half after winning the 2000 Cup.

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