Islanders: Best Player To Wear Number 57

Continuing our best of series, today we will look at the best player to wear number 57 for the New York Islanders in their history.

In the New York Islanders history, only three players have ever worn the number 57. The first to do so was Mark Hamway in 1985. He only wore it for two games in the 1984-1985 season. Hamway would go on to play a career 53 games in the NHL all with the Isles after switching to number 28 and 17 the next two years.

Then in 1990, there was Shawn Evans. Evans played two games with the Islanders and scored a goal as well. He was a second-round pick by the Devils in 1983 but went on to play just nine games over two years in the NHL.

That leads us to our winner today, Blake Comeau. Comeau was selected in the second round, 47th overall in the 2004 draft class. Two years after being drafted, Comeau made his NHL debut playing in three games during the 2006-2007 season.

The next year he was used in 51 games and scored eight goals and 15 points while averaging 11:40 of ice time. That would take a pretty big jump forward for the 2008-2009 season. Comeau would average 16:17 of ice time that year putting up 25 points in 53 games.

The playing time continued to increase for Blake Comeau into the 2009-2010 season. That year, he got into 61 games and was able to put up 35 points (17 goals, 18 assists). The following year would be the best year of his career.

In 88 games with the Isles, he had 24 goals and 46 points to his name playing 18:41 of ice time per night. All three of those numbers are career highs for Comeau, who at the time was 24 years old.

2011-2012 was a disaster for Comeau. In 16 games he didn’t register a point with the Islanders so they decided to waive him. He was picked up by Calgary where he sputtered around for a couple of years.

He had a bit of a resurgence in Pittsburgh putting up 31 points then he had two 30+ points in Colorado before making his way to Dallas where he still plays. In 55 games, Comeau has 16 points (8 goals, 8 assists) with the Stars.

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In six years with the Isles, Comeau had 121 points in 261 games which pace out to a .46 points per game pace (38 points in 82 games). He was a solid depth piece for the Isles for a few years during their transition period.