Top Shelf : Islanders Daily : 9/29/2013

Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports

This morning’s Top Shelf recaps an day filled with Islanders news from Saturday as the team trimmed its training camp roster by seven, announced an entry level signing and placed a new acquisition on the injured reserve list.

While none of the moves came as any surprise, the team clearly is getting ready to announce sometime this week their final 23 man roster for the Friday opener in New Jersey.

First, from New York Islanders.com comes the news of the players released from their training camp tryouts and reporting to Brideport camp with head coach Scott Pellerin on Tuesday morning.

‘Forward Jason Clark, along with defensemen Marc Cantin and Andrey Pedan have been loaned to Bridgeport. Forward Greg Miller and defensemen Mike Dalhuisen and Mike Keenan have been released from their amateur tryout agreements (ATO), while defenseman Dallas Jackson was released from his professional tryout agreement (PTO). All seven players will report to Sound Tigers training camp, which continues Tuesday, Oct. 1.’

Second came the news that Cal Clutterbuck has been officially placed on the injured reserve list, as of September 17. This will open up a roster spot for one of the youngsters (Brock Nelson?) to take his spot on the roster. Cal is still expected to be out another 4 weeks with a skate laceration to the front of this thigh.

Lastly, 2013 first round draft choice (15th overall) Ryan Pulock agreed to his three-year entry level deal, officially making him a member of the New York Islanders. Projected to still be 2-3 years away from making an impact on the Island, the stable of defenseman continues to grow as Garth Snow obviously has a plan for continuing the rebuild and keeping the Isles strong well into the future. Alan Quine signed his entry level deal yesterday as well.

The bigger news will come sometime mid-week when the plans for Nelson, Ryan Strome, Anders Lee, Griffin Reinhart and Matt Donovan are announced. Bob McKenzie, respected analyst for TSN, yesterday tweeted that he expects Reinhart to make the squad, to which I disagree. My feelings are he goes back to juniors for a year of seasoning before joining Bridgeport next year. Donovan and Nelson are the clear front-runners in my opinion at this point after all we have seen this preseason.

Take solace Islanders fans, summer is officially over as well as camp and it’s almost time to drop the puck on the 2013-14 season.

-Andy (@tazman19)

In Case You Missed It

• Isles official site gets you ready for the preseason finale, a split squad affair in Ottawa (EOI)
• Art Staple on the Isles success being tied to the penalty kill (Newsday)
• Does Josh Bailey stay on the line with John Tavares? (Isles Optimism)
• 3 key questions for the Isles as they head into the new season (Lighthouse Hockey)
• They also take a look at the goaltending situation on the Island (Lighthouse Hockey)
• No worry about Corey Crawford (Blackhawk Up)
• Has the preseason prepared the Ottawa Senators for a cup run? (SenShot)

Two Minutes for Tweeting

• Islanders fans in Dayton I would think are a few and far between so when you find them, latch on tight. Maybe bake a pie and send it over as a neighborly gesture and see if they have the center ice package. ?

• Exactly Mike. This echos what a lot of people have been saying all along. The Islanders are built to compete over the long haul, which ties directly to financial success at the gate.

• Congratulations Alan. You had a very good camp and welcome aboard! Looking forward to seeing your talents in the very near future!

• Isles fans are going to absolutely fall in love with Cal from his first shift. But it will be the end of October before we get a chance to witness it. Would not surprise me to see his jersey rise up the merchandise charts for the Isles behind JT.

• Preseason is just that Patrick…time to evaluate for the coaching staff and generally lineup decisions are made with that in mind, especially so close to the season.