The Islanders sorted through the injury wreckage and won’t like what they found.
The laundry list of injuries for the team, which comes into Sunday’s clash with the Rangers at Madison Square Garden at 4-5-2, looks all the worse after getting some clarity on the timeline for the players hurt on their trip to Columbus and Buffalo.
Mat Barzal was officially placed on LTIR Saturday with a timeline of four to six weeks, the team announced.
Adam Pelech, who appeared to suffer a jaw injury when a puck caught him in the face while blocking a shot Friday night, is also out four to six weeks and was placed on injured reserve.
In slightly better — but still bad — news, Mike Reilly was declared day-to-day with an upper-body injury after a scary hit from Jordan Greenway ended his night early on Friday.
Alexander Romanov, who left Friday’s game but quickly returned and finished the win over the Sabres, also did not skate at Saturday’s practice and was called day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
Samuel Bolduc and Grant Hutton were both recalled from AHL Bridgeport and could be in the lineup against the Rangers.
Putting Barzal on LTIR gives the Islanders some extra cap flexibility — his $9.15 million cap hit can now be used elsewhere — but requires that he miss 10 games and 24 days at a minimum.
Pelech will be eligible to return after just seven days, but that is, obviously, not the plan.
So, in one fell swoop, the Islanders are down as many as three defensemen and their best scorer — and might not be healthy until the holidays.
It is nothing short of a devastating package of news on multiple levels, ranging from the Islanders’ chances of making the playoffs to Barzal’s personal chances of participating at February’s Four Nations Tournament for Team Canada — which, with rosters due at the start of December, suddenly appear slim.
On the ice from Long Island
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It also appears to be an acute possibility that the Islanders could roll out a lineup against the Rangers featuring three defensemen who combined for just 36 NHL games last season in Hutton, Bolduc and Dennis Cholowski.
This group of Islanders has survived injuries before, and survived on Friday in Buffalo when playing the second half of the game with four defensemen.
But with Anthony Duclair already out until Nov. 14 at minimum, it is going to be tough sledding for the Islanders to stay above water between now and everybody getting healthy.
Really, it will require nothing short of Vezina Trophy-level goaltending from Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov, and for a group of forwards including Max Tsyplakov, Brock Nelson, Kyle Palmieri and Bo Horvat to step up massively.
Even if that happens, if the Islanders can play .500 hockey without Barzal, Duclair, Pelech and, potentially, Reilly and/or Romanov, it would be a monumental achievement.
Sorokin, at least, has indeed been terrific so far this season after being an injury concern during training camp, when he was recovering from offseason back surgery.
The netminder turned in 32 saves against Buffalo on Friday — one of them being on a penalty shot — and has a .928 save percentage thus far, on par with his numbers from a couple years ago when he was one of the league’s best netminders.
“He’s one of the best goalies in the game,” coach Patrick Roy said Friday night. “There’s a reason for it.”
If he is anything less, there is a good chance the Islanders’ season will be essentially over by Christmas.
