Islanders: Biggest and most devastating hits by Thomas Hickey

Thomas Hickey has been with the New York Islanders for seven years. Here are three of his biggest and most devastating hits.

Thomas Hickey has been a solid defender for the New York Islanders since they picked him up on the waiver wire from the Los Angeles Kings back in 2013. The 31-year-old former fourth-overall pick in 2007 has played 449 games over seven seasons so far scoring 115 points for the Isles.

His best statistical season was 2017-18 when Hickey scored 25 points with an offense-first Islanders team coached by Doug Weight. But since then, Hickey hasn’t factored for the Islanders as much.

In 2018-19 he was limited to 40 games due to injury and due to the rise of Devon Toews. This season, Hickey fell down the Isles depth chart to the fourth-ranked lefty behind Adam Pelech, Nick Leddy, and Toews. With Noah Dobson stepping up to the NHL Hickey was placed in the AHL with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

We know all about his overtime heroics and we all know about his abilities to be converted to a winger. But something we forget about with Thomas Hickey is how he came up with big hits for the New York Islanders.

With 486 hits over his 449 career NHL games, Hickey isn’t known for tossing his body around. But going over his NHL career so far, he’s had some big hits for the Islanders.

Why am I going over Thomas Hickey’s hits? Simple; YouTube. I watched video after video of Islanders highlights until a video came up of Thomas Hickey laying a devastating that I just had to watch over-and-over. So I decided to find more and write this piece.