New York Islanders Josh Bailey Is Getting Done Again

New York Islanders Josh Bailey is never going to be able to shrug the first eight years of his NHL career. No matter what he does, either with or without Tavares.

It’s crazy that some New York Islanders fans think that forward Josh Bailey can and never will do something positive for the remainder of his NHL career. Even when he’s actually doing so presently.

Last season Josh Bailey put up career numbers with 56 points in 82 games played. It was quite the departure from what we’d seen from Bailey previously. Just two seasons ago Bailey put up 32 points in 81 games.

The clear outlier was that Bailey was playing with Tavares all season long. And that’s a fair line to draw. Bailey was playing with one of the best players in the league. He’s going to get a stats bump. No doubt.

But Bailey leaching off of Tavares, if anything he was a big reason that Anders Lee was scoring those 34 goals last season. Something we ran five months ago.

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Holding Out For More

It’s fair to say that Josh Bailey had a good season last year and some of that was as a result of playing with Tavares. And holding judgment on Bailey for another season would also be fair.

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But so far this season Josh Bailey, who is no longer playing alongside John Tavares is still putting up the points. Josh Bailey already has seven points in nine games. Putting him on pace for 64 points at seasons end.

Bailey is getting is done without John Tavares on his wing. If there’s going to be any criticism of Bailey right now it can only be that he usually starts off hot.

Look at his last five season and you’ll see that in his opening ten games Josh Bailey is scoring between 0.6 to 0.8 points per game. Over the course of an 82 game season that’s a 49-66 point pace.

He hasn’t played ten games yet, but even if Bailey doesn’t get a point against the Wild on Thursday he’s still getting a 0.7 point per game pace. Right in his general cut-off.

But again, he’s doing this without John Tavares.

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Josh Bailey is performing well at the moment and has been for over a season now. And he’s showing that it’s not simply because he’s playing with John Tavares.