Islanders assign Josh Ho-Sang to AHL San Antonio, which is... uh, not Bridgeport

It’s not bad enough that the St. Louis Blues had to take the Islanders’ lunch money in the second and third periods of last night’s game? Now they’re taking the Islanders players, too?

That might be a tad over-dramatic but it’s certainly curious timing that the Islanders would reassign forward Joshua Ho-Sang from their own AHL affiliate in Bridgeport to the Blues’ AHL team in San Antonio. The team announced the move via its Twitter account this morning.

This isn’t something you see everyday, but that’s always been the story with Ho-Sang’s career with the Islanders. The Islanders do retain his rights and he hasn’t been traded to either the Blues or the Rampage. He just won’t be playing with the Sound Tigers and has been loaned to San Antonio.

Could this be a prelude to a trade? Maybe.

Does it mean the Islanders are ready to finally break ties with their 2014 first round pick? Maybe.

Both parties have to agree to the assignment, so it does sound like the Blues organization might be interested in seeing what Ho-Sang’s deal is.

The season started with Ho-Sang asking for a trade and being told to stay away from the Sound Tigers by Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello while he could work something out. In December, Ho-Sang reached out to Bridgeport GM Chris Lamoriello about coming back. He did, played a little, got hurt, played again, talked about how therapy helped him and how he loves everyone in the organization, and now has been assigned to play in somebody else’s AHL sandbox.

Sound Tigers beatwriter Michael Fornabaio wrote in a pre-game blog post this afternoon, “Gives the Blues a chance to kick the tires; gives Ho-Sang the same, and puts him in a playoff race, too; the Central is pretty tight 3-8. Hopefully he puts everything together, wherever that may be in the future.”

Bridgeport is 19-30-5 with two shootout losses and in last place in the AHL’s Atlantic Division. San Antonio is 22-21-7 with five shootout losses and is one point out of a playoff berth.

There’s been no official comments yet from either team, so this could be updated later. Ho-Sang will be a restricted free agent (RFA) at the end of the season and does have arbitration rights, according to Capfriendly.com.

I’m not going to pretend to know what any of this means. I just hope this comes to a satisfying conclusion for everyone at some point.

Update: oh...