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The New York Islanders season is over, but they hope their AHL affiliate Bridgeport Sound Tigers season extends beyond this coming weekend.
Per tradition, they assigned a few players back to the Sound Tigers to help them as they push for an AHL playoff spot. Forwards Joshua Ho-Sang and Connor Jones are headed back along with defenseman Adam Pelech.
Bridgeport is off today after a big win against Hartford Sunday to salvage one win from a three-in-three weekend, keeping their playoff hopes alive. They close the regular season with games Friday and Saturday in Springfield and Wilkes-Barry/Scranton. In a tight Atlantic Division, they are sitting on 92 points behind Lehigh Valley (95), Providence (95) — who beat the Sound Tigers twice over the weekend — and Hershey (93).
So, they don’t fully control their destiny, but reinforcements hopefully help them make it hard on the others vying for spots.
As for Ho-Sang and the gang in Islanders camp, they had their clean-out day today and availability with media in the morning. So look for lots more quotes from the players (John Tavares says things!!1) like this from Ho-Sang:
"It was a lot of fun to be a part of this. There are parts I need to work on, I'm going to focus on getting stronger & winning"-Josh Ho Sang
— Joe Barone (@28JoeBarone) April 10, 2017
Jones was the most recent callup, brought up on April 1 after John Tavares and Nikolay Kulemin were the latest to get hurt. Jones saw action in four NHL games — the first of his career — after appearing in 56 games with Bridgeport.
Ho-Sang was recalled at the beginning of February. With 36 points, he’d likely have been Bridgeport’s leading scorer if his recall hadn’t interrupted his season at 48 games.
Pelech was most recently recalled to the NHL at the beginning of January; in fact, he’s only appeared in 11 AHL games this season.