Joshua Ho-Sang Signs Entry Level Contract with New York Islanders

The first (and expected) news of what became a very busy day for the New York Islanders was quickly obscured by other headlines: Joshua Ho-Sang signed his entry level contract before being returned to his junior team in Windsor.

Entry level contracts are so standardized that there's little news in them for first rounders, other than the fact things are proceeding as prescribed. As a 28th-overall pick, Ho-Sang's compensation or bonus potential might be interesting when the numbers are released, but everything is so prescribed and even the max rookie salary is low in comparison to players who are beyond their ELC years.

As with fellow 2014 first-rounder Michael Dal Colle, who also signed during training camp, securing the three-year contract now -- while being reassigned to juniors, bumping the contract forward a year -- means the cap hit of the signing bonus will be spread over more than three years.

That's not a big deal right now, but hey, the Islanders just added $6.6 million in actual cap hit today from teams that could no longer squeeze Johnny Boychuk and Nick Leddy under the cap, so ... sooner or later you're talking about real money. Or real cap space.

Good First Impression

Ho-Sang, considered "controversial" in several traditional media hockey quarters because he speaks in thoughtful, coherent sentences, had a nice first camp and displayed the advertised hands and energy in his preseason game appearances.

He's still not up to size, has a lot to learn, and a ways to go before becoming NHL ready. But here's one more step of the journey checked off the list.

Nno matter how it all plays out, he'll live in lore for Garth Snow's post-draft interview after being asked about Ho-Sang's "character" issues. Oh, and he'll live on the t-shirt too.