You could have been excused for thinking it was a harbinger of a good diagnosis for Ryan Pulock that the Islanders sent down Isaiah George Sunday morning, 24 hours after bringing the defenseman up.
Instead, it might have been merely to get George some game action, with AHL Hamilton playing twice before the Islanders next take the ice on Thursday against Carolina.
That is because Pulock, the Islanders announced, will miss the next 2-4 weeks with the upper-body injury sustained in Thursday night’s win over the Wild.
You can add that to the pile of injuries the Islanders are currently dealing with: Matias Maccelli, Calum Ritchie, Mathew Barzal and Alexander Romanov. Maccelli, of the four — or now, five — is believed closest to a return. The winger is currently skating on his own and had the shortest timeline of anyone to begin with.
Barzal is the only other one who has begun skating, but his timeline continues to be indefinite.
As for Pulock, he left Thursday’s game after taking a hit from Blake Coleman that didn’t appear a particularly noteworthy play in the moment. He had shoulder surgery in the offseason, but it’s not clear whether this is related.
The Islanders played Saturday with George as the extra; Matt Kessel was inserted into the lineup on the third pair with Scott Mayfield, while Logan Stanley was put onto a tandem with Tony DeAngelo and Matthew Schaefer played on the right of Adam Pelech.
The results were fairly mixed, albeit in a game where Schaefer and Pelech had to deal with the nightmare matchup of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl — leaving the Islanders on their back foot in a 4-0 loss to the Oilers in which they generated no meaningful offense.
Kessel and Mayfield, at least, had fairly positive numbers, and were the only pair that wasn’t on the ice for a goal against.
The four days between games — with the Islanders taking Sunday and Monday off — are a chance for the club to take a catch its breath, get a little healthier and perhaps see if a move can be made to alleviate its roster crunch.
The lack of notification from NHL Player Safety regarding Emil Heineman’s knee-to-knee hit that got him ejected one shift into Saturday’s match was at least a positive in that regard.
“We got time here to reset,” DeBoer said after Saturday’s game. “We haven’t come up with a plan yet but we’ll make sure we use that time properly.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
