Per Katie Strang, defender Andrew MacDonald is the latest Islander to head to Europe. He’s going to be playing for HC Energie Karlovy Vary (say that five times fast) of the Czech league. That now makes seven Islanders playing in Europe: MacDonald (CZE), John Tavares (SUI), Mark Streit (SUI), Frans Nielsen (FIN), Michael Grabner (AUS), Lubomir Visnovsky (SLV), and Jesse Joensuu (FIN).
Sound Tigers Camp, 10/1 — Calvin de Haan’s Progression
Kevin Schultz , Islanders Point Blank:
SYOSSET, NY — Paired with Ty Wishart at Sound Tigers training camp, Calvin de Haan is healthy and ready to play hockey. Now 21 and a half, de Haan is looking to put his shoulder troubles behind him. He had surgery in 2010 to correct a shoulder injury and missed a month in early 2012 with a second injury that didn’t require surgery.
“[The shoulder] feels good,” de Haan said at Iceworks on Monday. “I think last time might have been a little bit of a fluke. It feels strong and I’m ready to go.”
One of the other questions about de Haan has also been his size and whether he’s ready for the NHL level in that respect. He’s up six pounds from last year to 195lb and as he likes to say, is always working on getting ‘faster and stronger.’ To read more of this story, click here
Travis Hamonic Trains and Mentors in the AHL While Waiting for Lockout to End
Kevin Schultz , Islanders Point Blank:
SYOSSET, NY — Two years ago, Islanders defender Travis Hamonic spent a few shorts months in the AHL with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. He played 19 games in Bridgeport at the start of the 2010-11 season before being called up to the Islanders permanently in November 2010. Since being called up he’s amassed 135 NHL games and become one of the Islanders best defenders, if not the best.
With fewer than 160 games played at the NHL level, Hamonic is eligible to spend the lockout in the AHL without having to pass through waivers. He’s one of many young NHL players who have been assigned to their AHL affilites, a list that also includes the likes of Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Philly’s Sean Couturier and Carolina’s Jeff Skinner. Hamonic was paired with Matt Donovan on the top defensive pair today, the first full day of camp, and is looking to help lead the team until the NHL is ready to go.
“[The AHL is] the second best league to the NHL and there’s a lot of good young players, a lot of guys working hard just to get that one opportunity to get to the NHL level,” Hamonic said at Iceworks in Syosset earlier today. “I was grateful to get that opportunity early on in my AHL debut, and hopefully I can come back and give these guys some leadership and be a mentor for the first and second year guys for the time being. Hopefully things will get resolved at the NHL level pretty soon.”
Prior to joining the Sound Tigers, he had been skating in informal practices with NHL players in Winnipeg. “I was getting tired of waking up everyday and having to practice,” he said. “I want to get into game mode and start hitting someone.” To read more of this story, click here
SOUND TIGERS — Seeing a Mascot Skydive is Something We Can Support
Kevin Schultz , Islanders Point Blank:
It’s not very often that I’ll highlight a marketing gimmick here at Point Blank; the site has always had that independent tagline at the top and I intend to uphold that (OK, we probably can’t say bad things about the Mets but other than that it’s true). I’m also not going to ignore something awesome either. To explain, let’s start with this tweet from the Sound Tigers’ Official account yesterday:
Oh yeah, that’s a totally normal hockey tweet for mid-August… Or not.
There’s something about seeing a giant blue furby tiger fall out of the sky that is something I’d like to see happen. It’s minor league promotions like these (see also: pink jerseys, Rod Blagojevich Prison Night) that are wacky, fresh and straight up nuts. Jumping someone out of a plane in a big blue tiger costume certainly fits all of these criteria. To read more of this story, click here
