Video: Josh Ho-Sang talks about his first goal and the Islanders sweet post-game leather jacket

Let’s declare this a “Number Free Zone” and let that nonsense rage on elsewhere.

More immediately, rookie Joshua Ho-Sang has provided the Islanders lineup with a lot of energy since his recall at the end of February and Tuesday night in Edmonton, he provided the team with a goal, the first of his NHL career. We enjoyed it and the Islanders 4-1 win over the Oilers.

After the game, Ho-Sang got to wear the team’s amazing David Puddy-approved post-game leather jacket and took over one of the team’s tablet PCs to talk about how the goal came about and what was going through his head at the time. As we already know, unlike 99.99 percent of hockey players, Ho-Sang isn’t from the “Quoteless” Joe Sakic School of Sports Cliches and has no time for “get pucks on net, good things happen”-type answers.

He opens by praising the shot fake by Thomas Hickey at the point, which drew the attention of two Oilers defenders and opened up a lane for Ho-Sang’s shot that beat Cam Talbot from about 60 feet out. He also cops to watching the video about 200 times, which might be an exaggeration.

When he went back to the bench, one of the first to meet him was John Tavares, who sat down right next to him. Ho-Sang and Tavares, who has 231 goals of his own, shared the relief of getting that first goal off your back.

Keeping your head in the game after achieving a lifelong goal was the most difficult thing, Ho-Sang says. He also details the range of emotions one goes through at a moment like that.

As for that bad-ass jacket, purchased by Johnny Boychuk a few years ago off ebay, Ho-Sang says his teammates made him wear it a little longer than usual, a story corroborated at the time by Newday’s Arthur Staple.

Ho-Sang downplays the jacket’s ethereal awesomeness by calling it, “pretty cool” and saying he wouldn’t mind having one. My question is, why would anyone ever take it off?