Mathieu Darche met with Anders Lee's agent, Neil Sheehy, this week at the NHL Scouting Combine presented by Fanatics and said the New York Islanders still hope to sign the 35-year-old captain to a new contract before he can become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.
Darche made the meeting public and left little doubt the club wants to keep Lee after a 14-season career entirely with the Islanders. "I met with his agent, Neil Sheehy, here this week," Darche said, and added, "We're planning ahead, so I still hope we can get a deal done. It's not there yet, and we'll keep working at it till July 1."
The numbers underline what Darche is trying to preserve: Lee has played 923 games and scored 308 goals for the Islanders, and he finished the 2025–26 season having played all 82 games with 19 goals and 42 points. He has been the club's captain since Oct. 4, 2018, and completed the final season of the seven-year contract he signed on July 1, 2019.
Lee is eligible to hit unrestricted free agency on July 1 if no new deal is reached, a deadline that frames every comment from Darche and the front office this week. Darche said Lee "has earned the right to look at options where he is in his career," and acknowledged the negotiations remain unresolved: "It's not there yet," he said, repeating that the Islanders will continue talks through the end of June.
The Islanders' calendar and roster planning add urgency. Darche also reported the team expects defenseman Alexander Romanov and forward Kyle Palmieri to be fully cleared before training camp opens in September; Romanov missed the final 62 games of the season with an upper-body injury, while Palmieri had surgery to repair a torn ACL sustained on Nov. 28.
New York stayed in the playoff race until Game No. 81 of the season and finished seven points behind the Philadelphia Flyers for third place in the Metropolitan Division. Keeping Lee would preserve the club's leadership core and continuity up front; losing a captain who has spent his entire career with the team would force a different kind of roster and identity decision at the start of July.
Darche framed the talks as ongoing and respectful of Lee's options. He said he told Lee he hoped the captain could reach the 1,000-game mark in an Islanders uniform, but added limits. "I said at the end of the year I'd love for Anders to play his 1,000th game with the Islanders, but it has to work for us and for him," Darche said. "He's been a great leader, a great captain, and we'll keep talking until we find out there's a deal or no deal."
The immediate consequence is simple: July 1 is the deadline that will determine whether Lee remains the Islanders' captain and if the team keeps intact a player who has been in the organization since the sixth round, No. 152 overall, of the 2009 NHL Draft. Until then, Darche's meeting at the combine and his pledge to keep negotiating are the operative facts.
The open question is whether those negotiations reach agreement before the free-agency window opens. Darche repeatedly described the process as ongoing—"It's a process, these things, right? So, we'll see where it goes"—but offered no timetable beyond continuing work through July 1. That day will show whether the Islanders can keep a 14-season veteran who has been central to their identity, or whether Lee will test the market for the first time in his NHL career.
