After a day of rookie camp yesterday, your
New York Islanders prospects met at the Barclays Center & competed in the teams’
annual Blue & White scrimmage. 6,311 fans came for a game on a Wednesday
night to see the top prospects in the system compete. They gave the fans a sample of what they can
bring to the organization by showcasing their skills in the inter-squad game.
Players like Michael Dal Colle, Joshua Ho-Sang & Ryan Pulock joined top 2015
draftees, Mathew Barzal & Anthony Beauvillier in the game. Goalies, Ilya Sorokin (visa issues) and Linus
Soderstrom (hip surgery) missed rookie camp.
Garth Snow mentioned how he felt about the
teams prospect pool, "We feel that we’ve built a team through the draft
now that can compete with any team on any given night."
Despite the White team’s puck possession
early in the game, it was Otso Rantakari (Salerno & Quine) scoring for the Blue
squad just 5:07 into the first period. Camp
invite, Miks Indrasis (Bertrand & Barzal) gave Team Blue a 2-0 lead in the
second half of the period. Adam Pelech
showed up and brought his grit with a few nice physical plays and fellow BST,
Stephon Williams was solid in net for the Blue team. Kevin Lankinen played well in net for White
despite surrendering 2 goals.
McAdam for Blue and Lankinen still in net for
White to start the second period. Sam
Anas puts it up high to give Team Blue a 3-0 lead early in the 2nd period. The White team gets a PPG off a sick feed
from behind the net from Josh Ho-sang (Song) to Griffen Molino for the goal,
3-1 the score. Sebastien Collberg (Barzal
& Dal Colle) adds one and its 4-1 Blue off a really nice passing play to
net the tally. It’s the second assist
for Barzal. Undrafted, Sam Anas tucks in his second goal from behind the net for Blue to make it a 5-1 score. Josh Ho-Sang sets up Anthony Beauvillier with
another high light reel play to make it a 5-2 game after 2.
McAdam still in for Blue and Anthony Pupplo
in net for White to start the third period. After some back and forth by both
squads, Team White continued the pressure until they had a 5 on 3 chance for
1:27. Joshua Ho-Sang to Anthony Beauvillier
tallied again to make it 5-3 game late in the game. Ho-Sang (Ole) chants rain down in the
Barclays Center from the Isles faithful.
Team Blue defeated Team White by a 5-3 score in regulation.
In the skills competition, Hardest Shot was
up first and Ryan Pulock ripped one at 105 mph. John Schaivo, a top roller
hockey pro scored a sick lacrosse style goal in the shootout competition and Otso
Rantakari netted the overall advantage for team Blue, for an 8-3 win.
Highlights included the play making of
Ho-Sang, Barzal, & Dal Colle and a dark horse like Anas working hard to
make an impression on the coaching staff.
Beauvillier was tenacious and looked lethal in front of the net while Indrasis
should get signed to at least make some more noise with the BST. I liked what I saw (when the stream wasn’t crashing)
of D like Pelech & Rantakari. Ryan
Pulock didn’t have his best game, but Sebastian Collberg had some flashes of
what Snow had spoken about when he acquired him in the Vanek trade. Williams was solid in net to start for team Blue
and McAdam got better for them as the game went on. To me, Ho-Sang edged Beauvillier for the game
MVP.
We can’t lose sight of the fact that it was a
prospect game, but because it was, you can see some of the talent that will
soon be fighting for a roster spot. And
once again, it makes me pleased to see how deep Snow has made the Isles
system. This doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like
to add a veteran or two on both sides of the puck, but I just don’t see it happening unless the right guy
is available for the right price. The
Isles have built through the draft and added pieces here and there and they are
much better because of it. How much
better will they be this season? We
shall see what they look like to start the season to have a better guess.
Isles Notes:
Former Isles goaltender, Anders Nilsson (Blackhawks)
has been traded to the Edmonton Oilers and signed a 1 way NHL contract.
Some interesting side notes were the Barclays
center boards were free of ads, the seats along the glass are 3’ higher than
other NHL arenas. The Isles experimented with an alternate view of obstructed
goal for affected fans on Jumbo Tron.
Per Rob Taub, “Aiden Salerno, John Schiavo :
Blue, Michael Gilroy and Mike Marnell: White are the four players from LI
playing in tonight's game.”
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