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After a day of leisure and relaxation, the Islanders are back on the ice for their first team practice since before Adam Pelech went down with his ruptured Achilles. Now they can hone in on and tighten up on the things they think might be lacking without Pelech’s presence.
Hockey, itself, isn’t back for a couple more days, though. Boo hiss, as the great Alex Trebek would say.
Islanders News
- Speaking of Pelech, now that we’ve gotten a taste of life without him, Noah Dobson is filling in admirably and Nick Leddy has made a good partner for Ryan Pulock. [The Athletic]
- Elliotte Friedman touched on the Pelech injury, Pulock’s shot, and Anthony Beauvillier’s “shot” with Anna Kendrick. No rumors or anything like that, though. [31 Thoughts]
- Jordan Eberle hopes to turn it on in the second half; he says he’s always been more of a second half player anyway. [Newsday]
- Sasha Kandrach wrote a longform piece on the Isles site about the players and their gear preferences and there’s some really interesting stuff in there. [Islanders] Dan wrote a piece summarizing his favorite parts from it. [LHH]
- Dan was a busy man yesterday, in fact. He compiled some of his favorite Barry Trotz quotes here, and quite frankly when you put them altogether, he does seem like a philosopher. [LHH]
- LISTEN: And, Dan posted the next episode in the Islanders Award Winners series about Billy Smith’s 1982 Vezina Trophy win. Great stuff in this audio documentary. [LHH]
- LISTEN: Andrew Gross discusses the lack of penalties in the Isles’ favor, the return of Sebastian Aho, and Josh Bailey in episode no. 15 of the Island Ice podcast. [Newsday]
- LISTEN: More podcasts! Arthur Staple discusses the Pelech injury, the scoring woes, and the firing of Peter Laviolette in the latest episode of No Sleep ‘Til Belmont. It was recorded before the Devils game on Tuesday night, but still worth a listen. [The Athletic]
Here are the jerseys Mathew Barzal (and maybe Brock Nelson if you keep voting ten times a day here!) will be wearing at the All-Star Game:
Fresh #NHLAllStar threads for @Barzal_97. ⭐️ pic.twitter.com/2jlbAZm6kA
— New York Islanders (@NYIslanders) January 8, 2020
Elsewhere
Last night’s NHL scores include the Flyers topping the Capitals in regulation and the Jets beating the Maple Leafs in the shootout.
Flames defenseman Rasmus Andersson signed a six-year extension worth $27.3 million total. That’s about the minimum we’re looking at for Pulock, according to Carey Haber.
So, this isn't an active comparison to Ryan Pulock based on this year's isolated metrics (so far), but have to imagine that this Andersson contract is the *baseline* of what we can expect from a Pulock deal, especially because of 6's point production and TOI. https://t.co/FU5wMq3uRP pic.twitter.com/x8j4VZT1pl
— Carey Haber (@habermetrics) January 9, 2020
- Lias Andersson (no relation to Rasmus, I’m pretty sure) gave some weird and cryptic information about his time with the Rangers to a Swedish media outlet. He most likely won’t be back any time soon. [NY Post]
- Peter Laviolette spoke to Pierre LeBrun about his dismissal, his time in Nashville, and what he’s going to do next. [The Athletic]