The Islanders aren’t exactly panicking, but neither are they sitting on their hands and waiting for a two-game losing streak to undercut their good start to this season.
So on Wednesday, general manager Garth Snow decided to make a handful of moves, first being the promotion of Anders Lee from AHL Bridgeport. The 24-year-old power forward was set to join the team in Boston for Thursday night’s game against the Bruins, and likely will join a line with Brock Nelson and Ryan Strome.
Lee had a strong training camp, but because he was able to be sent down without waivers, he was the easy choice to cut.
While with the Sound Tigers, the 6-foot-2, 225-pound Notre Dame product had three goals and two assists in five games, including the overtime winner in his most recent game, Sunday against Springfield.
Room was made on the Islanders’ roster by placing forward Colin McDonald on waivers. The 30-year-old was a healthy scratch for the first four games of the season, and struggled to make an impact in the two in which he played. McDonald is set to be an unrestricted free agent after this season. If no team picks up his $637,500 salary-cap hit, he will go ply his trade for Bridgeport.
“I think we’re going to have to make some tweaks eventually if we don’t start scoring goals at even strength,” coach Jack Capuano said after practice and before all of the personnel moves were announced. “We’ll start with lines, then tweak a few things, personnel-wise.”
Talented forward Mikhail Grabovski (concussion) was placed on injured reserve, retroactive to Oct. 16, meaning the earliest he can return is for Saturday’s home game against the Stars.
Grabovski was injured on a clean hit by the Sharks’ slow-footed enforcer, John Scott. The collision knocked Grabovski out cold on the ice. Yet after going through all the concussion protocol, Grabovski practiced with the Islanders on Wednesday with a non-contact jersey on, and impressed Capuano.
“Having not talked to our trainer, I thought he went through practice with a good pace and did real well,” Capuano said.
The Islanders also are embracing the return of top-four defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky, who seems a safe bet to play his first game of the season on Thursday after another full-team practice. Visnovsky, 38, had been suffering from back spasms since midway through training camp.
His return comes at a good time, as another blueliner, Travis Hamonic, is seemingly being forced to sit one out after missing Wednesday’s practice. Hamonic played in Tuesday’s 5-2 loss to the Maple Leafs despite substantial pain in what is presumed to be a left-side injury. It’s an injury that one source said is not considered serious, but can only really be treated with rest.
With Calvin de Haan receiving no sort of supplemental discipline for his illegal check to the head of David Clarkson on Tuesday, that means Visnovsky will likely slip right into Hamonic’s place alongside Thomas Hickey. After having a nightmarish evening on Tuesday, Hickey took a skate to the face early in the third period, and received what he guessed were “about 20 stitches” along the right side of his chin up to his lower lip. He practiced on Wednesday with a face shield.
The previous partnership of Hamonic and Hickey had led to some disastrous statistics, with Hamonic having a team-worst 36.7 Corsi-For percentage in 5-on-5 close, zone-start-adjusted situations. Hickey is second-worst at 38.1.
“We really didn’t have a whole lot of options with Visnovsky out,” Capuano said. “Obviously, Visnovsky and Hickey have played real well together. Now that Vis is back — and obviously Travis wasn’t out there [Wednesday] and we won’t know his situation yet — but most likely we’ll go back to Visnovsky and Hickey.”
