32 Teams, 32 Players: Brock Nelson

He is one of the New York Islanders best players, one of the league's most underrated players and also playing for a new contract extension.

Now that the 2024-25 NHL season has arrived we are going to highlight one player on each team that stands out for the season. What kind of player? Well, a player that could make a difference, be an X-factor, be on the verge of a breakout, or just simply be a player under the microscope and needing to have a big season.

Basically — which player do I think is the most fascinating on each team.

We are not going in any particularly order and continue today with Brock Nelson of the New York Islanders.

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The New York Islanders are never the flashiest or prettiest team in the NHL. They do not play an exciting brand of hockey, they do not have a ton of star power, they do not score a lot of goals and their underlying analytics and defensive metrics are never quite as good as their reputation.

Despite all of that they still find a way to make the playoffs pretty much every year, and if you look at the past five years as a collective big-picture sample they have been one of the 10 most successful teams in the league in terms of actual on-ice success (it is true: I looked into this before the season. You can not really argue with it).

The biggest factor in that success is primarily goaltending. Ilya Sorokin has been a game-changer from the moment he arrived in the NHL, and they have a more than capable backup in Semyon Varlamov that is certainly good enough to be a No. 1 starter for a lot of teams.

Goaltending masks a lot and fixes everything.

While goaltending is one of the primary driving forces behind their winning, they do still have some really good players throughout the lineup. Especially at the top of the lineup.

Brock Nelson is one of them, and he is at the top of the list. He has also been one of the more underrated and overlooked top-line players in the league scoring at least 34 goals in each of the past three seasons. His 114 goals since the start of the 2021-22 season are the 19th most in the league, and put him ahead of players like Sidney Crosby, Sebastian Aho, Jake Guentzel, Matthew Tkachuk, Brady Tkachuk, Artemi Panarin, Roope Hintz, Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, and Mitch Marner. Among hundreds of others in the league. Bottom line: The guy produces at a big-time rate.

He and the Islanders are also entering a pretty big season as Nelson is in the final year of his contract and eligible to become an unrestricted free agent after this season.

How are the Islanders and Nelson going to play this?

How should they play this?

Let’s talk about it.