New York Islanders Daily: How A Reduced Role Will Impact Josh Bailey

Josh Bailey had a breakout year in the 2016-2017 season with the New York Islanders. He won’t have the same role so how will that affect him?

It’s assumed that the New York Islanders top line will be Anders Lee – John Tavares – Jordan Eberle. So naturally, Josh Bailey will no longer be a part of the Islanders top unit like he was last year. He had a ton of success on that line last year, so now what?

The second line doesn’t seem like an option because Andrew Ladd – Brock Nelson – Josh Ho-Sang will likely be playing together on that second unit. So down to the third line it is.

If you expect Bailey to put up 50 plus points on the third line you’ll be severely disappointed. He’ll be playing with some combination of Mathew Barzal, Anthony Beauvillier and/or Jason Chimera. Those kinds of players aren’t going to allow Bailey to put up 50 points again.

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In all likelihood, we will see Bails go back down to that 35-40 point range that he hit rather consistently before his coming out party last year. Bailey’s not the kind of player who will produce points on his own.

He needs an Anders Lee and John Tavares combination, two 30+ goal scorers to be around him. Now, he didn’t necessarily ride on the coattails of John Tavares last year, but you can’t expect his playing style to have that much of an impact on the third line.

If Bails is over the 40 point mark I think we could be pretty happy with that. Everyone on the top two lines should hit 40 points each pretty easily if anyone on the bottom two lines hits 40 points that’s just a bonus.

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