Islanders sign Joey Larson to two-year NHL-AHL deal

The Islanders signed Joey Larson to a two-year, two-way NHL-AHL contract, giving the 25-year-old another step in the organization’s forward pipeline and a realistic path to AHL minutes. For New York, the deal reads less like a headline addition for the top six and more like a roster-building move that adds insurance for injuries, recalls and the long grind on the affiliate side.

Larson’s new contract updates the arrangement the Islanders announced in March 2025, when the Michigan State University forward signed a one-year entry-level contract beginning in the 2025-26 season. That earlier deal brought him into the system as a college free agent, and this latest move keeps him attached to the organization through the 2026-27 picture, when depth across the NHL roster and the affiliate will matter just as much as individual upside.

PuckPedia lists the two-year contract at $1,750,000 total, with a cap hit of $875,000 per season. That kind of structure usually tells you where a player sits in the queue: close enough to the NHL roster to be a call-up option, but valuable enough at the AHL level to help cover a full season of games, practices and inevitable injuries.

For Larson, the path looks straightforward. If he turns into a regular NHL option, the Islanders will have found a useful forward at a manageable cost. If he does not, the organization still gets a player who can log meaningful AHL minutes and be ready when the NHL club needs a body for a short-term recall. In a system that has been nudging college free agents into the pipeline, that kind of flexibility is often the point.

The Islanders promoted the signing across X, Threads, Facebook and Instagram, signaling that the move sits inside the club’s broader depth planning rather than as a routine transaction note.