New York Islanders Josh Ho-Sang No Longer Emergency Call-Up

The New York Islanders made a sensible and rational decision today. They changed Josh Ho-Sang’s status from emergency call-up to a regular call up.

It sounds like semantics, to tussle with the specific terminology attached to a players status, but when it comes to New York Islanders rookie Josh Ho-Sang, it matters.

At the end of October Josh Ho-Sang was sent down to the AHL for reasons. The team felt like he needed to work on a few things and the AHL would be the best place to do so. We can all debate whether that was the right call or not, but it’s the one the islanders went with.

In six games with the Islanders AHL affiliate, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, Josh Ho-Sang put up six points. Which doesn’t prove that he fixed what needed to be fixed. It just showed that he was going to treat it with the level of maturity the team wanted from him.

We know that Ho-Sang can score points. In his 28 games at the NHL level between this year and last he’s put up 15 points. A pace 44 over the course of a full 82 game season. At the AHL level he’s been even better. In 56 games he’s put up 42 points. Scoring wasn’t Ho-Sang’s problem.

But after injuries to Nikolai Kulemin against the Edmonton Oilers on November 7th, and to Anthony Beauvillier against Dallas on November 10th, the Islanders needed an extra man. So they called up Ho-Sang on an emergency basis for their game against the St. Louis Blues on November 11th. An emergency that ended today with Anthony Beauvillier being ready to play.

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Emergency Lifted

On November 16th the Islanders changed Ho-Sang’s status and kept him in the lineup for a while longer. It pushes Alan Quine back onto the scratch pad and Chimera down to the fourth line. Something that Islanders fans have been hoping for for sometime.

And it’s not that Ho-Sang has magically learned exactly what the New York Islanders wanted him to learn. But with injuries its impossible to justify keeping him in the AHL. Whatever lessons Ho-Sang needed to learn he’ll do so in the NHL.

That means he might still turn the puck over. He might have a few plays out there where he handles the puck for a bit too long. That might very well still happen. But so long as Ho-Sang’s actions on the ice match his words when speaking with NHL.com’s Brian Compton, he’ll be just fine.

"I want to focus on the little things that I can control and build on top of that throughout games and hopefully string a couple of games together for myself and make my presence felt in a positive way."

Next: Two Goalies The Isles Should Look At

Ho-Sang is finally back in the lineup. That can only be good news for the New York Islanders, who now have three scoring lines at their disposal.