New York Islanders: Tom Kuhnhackl Will Have Bigger Role

With Tanner Fritz out 6-8 weeks with a blood clot, the New York Islanders will turn to Tom Kuhnhackl to center the third line.

Yesterday we received some pretty scary news. New York Islanders center Tanner Fritz had to have a blood clot removed and will be out for the next six to eight weeks. As a result, Tom Kuhnhackl will have a bigger role with this team.

The Islanders haven ‘t called anyone up from Bridgeport so it appears the fix is already on the roster. They will likely stick with the lines they’ve rolled out the past two games, meaning the third line will be Anthony Beauvillier – Tom Kuhnhackl – Leo Komarov.

Daily Faceoff ranks that line as the 30th third line in the NHL. It’s a line that features Anthony Beauvillier as the lone scoring threat. He had two goals in Saturday’s contest against Buffalo putting him up to 18 on the year.

As for Kuhnhackl and Komarov, they are both grinders. In 33 games this year Kuhnhackl has nine points in 12:48 of ice time. That’s a career high for him in ice time, mostly because he was a fourth line player in Pittsburgh the past few seasons.

Komarov has been a staple on the third line and has had his ups and downs. While being one of the better penalty killers on the team he’s gone long absences without much production and is prone to taking bad penalties late in games.

In order to be successful, the line is going to have to forecheck aggressively and outmuscle teams to win puck battles. They don’t have the “skill” to keep up with most third lines in the NHL.

P.S: It was an interesting day on the old Twitter machine yesterday. To clear something up, I knew they weren’t going to call up Josh Ho-Sang, even though I wouldn’t be opposed to it. I didn’t know that Twitter gimmicks had to be spelled out.

And to think I almost tweeted “Let’s get weird” instead of “Do it cowards”, I could’ve saved myself from a Sunday of explaining how Twitter works to people over the age of 35.

Isles Tweet of the Day goes to Brian Compton for his keen sense of humor.

Isles Tweet 0f The Day

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