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#14 on Islanders Top 25 Under 25: Ty Wishart of Waverly Place

By Dominik
It happens.
It happens.

Rating Ty Wishart at age 23 has nothing to do with him being all Islanders fans have left to remember Dwayne Roloson by.

It has nothing to do with his 6'4", 218 lbs. (okay, maybe a little). It has more to do with him playing a decent all-around game in 20 appearances (obligatory small sample caveat) with the Isles last season, leading us to think he has something to offer sooner rather than later.

For those who see the body and think it underused, I agree to a point. Sometimes he doesn't appear fully engaged, though I think he got better in his second stint in 2010-11. For the record though, his 26 hits in 20 games last season actually trailed only Travis Hamonic and Milan Jurcina in hits/game on the blueline.

Wishart appears to have had a bad training camp in 2011 -- this observer wasn't impressed in the limited preseason action -- and that may have been enough to get the Islanders to sign Steve Staios. If you think Wishart is on his third NHL organization for any particular reason, maybe there's something there. Alternatively, considering Staios just got one of the "A's" on his chest, you might say the Islanders were intent to add a veteran body all along, and Wishart and the other trio of young aspirants had to really wow them over to win a job.

Our Top 25 Under 25 poll was taken before training camp, but I think the result still holds up: Ty Wishart is arguably the Islanders' 14th-best player under 25 years old.

Better yet, having cleared waivers, Wishart still has time to earn a place later this season. Something tells me they'll eventually need him. Why, I'll go out on a limb and say Wishart is part of the Islanders' next playoff team. (Truthfully, that's just bravado: I'd never bet on the 14th-best anything. But I do think he'll be an NHLer.)

 

How We Voted

Top 25 Under 25 mikb M11 CIL Dom KQ Web
Ty Wishart
 12 11 20 15 19 12

For this first edition, we polled LHH authors Keith, WebBard, mikb, myself, and two particularly prospect-focused LHH regulars, CanadianIslesLifer and MatthewM11. We wanted enough to get a decent number of voters but not so much that we make the first run unwieldy. It is absolutely unscientific but with varied enough votes to get us thinking.

Previous Posts in This Top 25 Islanders Under 25 Series

The Top 25 under 25 is an idea conceived (I think) by Oilers blog Copper & Blue and copied elsewhere, incorporated here by popular demand. We cut it off at players who were under 25 going into this season, so Andrew MacDonald, having just turned 25 this month, barely misses eligibility.