The Islanders homestand concludes tonight as they square of with the Vancouver Canucks. Something has to give tonight as both teams have been borderline miserable the past few games and neither team has scored with any regularity.
Travis Hamonic will be out 4-6 weeks with a broken hand and the Isles have recalled Adam Pelech to take his spot. Pelech will line up with Nick Leddy. The way Hamonic has played this season the addition of Pelech may help. For someone who stated that he wanted to remain an Islander Hamonic has played like he wants to be on the first jet out of here. I'm joking of course but I can't sugar coat how average he has been.
The same though can be said for nintey percent of the roster. The bottom six forwards go through the blender again tonight and we have spit out a third line of Prince, Strome and Quine. The blender also came up with a fourth line of Ladd, Cizikas and Kulemin. If Ladd falls any farther he will be playing with the ice crew.
Jaro Halak will make his third straight start and he has been one the most recent bright spots. If it wasn't for his strong play the Isles would have not gotten loser points against the Flyers and Oilers.
Something has got to give. In years past we have had passengers but now it feels like most of this team is crammed into one clown car. Andrew Ladd, Ryan Strome, Anders Lee... where are you? This team will be defined by its forwards and it would be nice for them to step up so I can stop doing adance draft prep for next summer