Preseason Finale: Travis Hamonic Leaves with Injury as Islanders Sweep Senators

The New York Islanders finished their preseason schedule the way you'd hope they would: With a bunch of players with bright futures putting their mark on the scoresheet in split-squad victories over the Ottawa Senators.

Unfortunately, a key player left for a yet-to-be-determined injury.

Travis Hamonic played with the squad in Barrie, Ontario, and reportedly did not return after a first-period collision with Derek Grant. Multiple reports have him pending further evaluation on Monday.

Ottawa: Half-Islanders 4, Quasi-Senators 1

As for the bright side: Top prospects Ryan Strome, Ryan Pulock and Brock Nelson scored in the Ottawa game, which also featured Riley Wetmore converting this sweet set of moves by Kirill Kabanov (h/t IPB):

Pulock's goal was assisted by both Strome and Griffin Reinhart, making a connection of the Islanders' last three first-round picks. (Throw Nelson in the mix and you had the last four first-round picks peppering the scoresheet.)

From the official site recap of the game:

"It was a really cool connection," said Pulock of the three first rounders getting on the score sheet together. "I think it was a good play as Reinhart found me open. He gave me a good pass and I got the hard shot away."

And yes, if Hamonic is determined to have any kind of lengthy injury, then the aforementioned Reinhart has another arrow pointing toward his sticking around a while. Reinhart and Matt Carkner were the ice time leaders in this one, with each eclipsing 20 minutes and Reinhart having a team-high 24:15.

Also in the Ottawa game, Evgeni Nabokov stopped 14 of 15 shots in his 40 minutes, while Kenny Reiter stopped all 11 shots in the third period. Craig Anderson was the victim in the Senators' net.

With that being the "B" squad, Doug Weight was behind the bench and generally pleased:

"We dictated a lot of the play. We put pucks in good spots and we were hungry. We pride ourselves on being successful when we outwork the other team and we saw that tonight."

On the other side, Senators coach Paul MacLean was not a fan of how things went:

"This is a hard league and if you don't come prepared to play and work any team in this league can beat you," Senators coach Paul MacLean said. "That team that played us flat outworked us in every area of the game and deserved to win and that should give us a real good wake-up call going into next week."

Lines in Ottawa:

Forwards
29 Brock Nelson – 16 Peter Regin – 96 Pierre-Marc Bouchard
17 Matt Martin – 53 Casey Cizikas – 13 Colin McDonald
18 Ryan Strome – 61 Riley Wetmore – 27 Anders Lee
77 Kirill Kabanov – 38 Chris Bruton – 36 Eric Boulton

Defensemen
8 Griffin Reinhart – 7 Matt Carkner
37 Brian Strait – 46 Matt Donovan
55 Aaron Ness – 6 Ryan Pulock

Goaltenders
20 Evgeni Nabokov
35 Ken Reiter

Barrie: Quasi-Islanders 5, Half-Senators 2

In Barrie, outside of the Hamonic injury it was more happy stuff from the Isles: Prospect and training camp standout Johan Sundstrom scored twice, while Kyle Okposo (playing right wing on the top line) and John Tavares each scored.

In goal, Anders Nilsson stopped 15 of 16 shots as he played the first 30 minutes. Fittingly, Kevin Poulin then stopped 15 of 16 shots in the final half of the game.

Said Sundstrom in the official site's recap of that one:

"I had good chemistry all night with (John) Persson and Diamond. We’ve been working hard all through camp and it was nice to get two goals."

And Capuano, on what's next as final 23-man rosters (plus injured reserve players like Cal Clutterbuck) are due Monday afternoon:

"With our 5-on-5 and special teams play, we’ve accomplished what we wanted to accomplish," Capuano said. "We’ve still got Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week to work more on those things. All of our guys have battled for the last few weeks. Unfortunately, you can only keep so many of them."

Newsday had more from Capuano in its wrap of the night, with some big decisions ahead.

Lines in Barrie, according to the Islanders:

Forwards
26 Matt Moulson – 91 John Tavares – 21 Kyle Okposo
40 Michael Grabner – 51 Frans Nielsen – 12 Josh Bailey
56 John Persson – 28 Johan Sundstrom – 64 Joe Diamond
59 Brett Gallant – 10 Alan Quine – 49 Justin Johnson

Defensemen
14 Thomas Hickey – 11 Lubomir Visnovsky
44 Calvin de Haan – 3 Travis Hamonic
52 Joe Finley – 42 Scott Mayfield

Goaltenders
45 Anders Nilsson
60 Kevin Poulin