Islanders prospect report: Collin Adams dominant right now

This week’s New York Islanders prospect report focuses on University of North Dakota center Collin Adams, who’s on fire.

New York Islanders hockey might be back on January 13, but for many of their prospects the season has been going on for some time now. The University of North Dakota finds themselves at the top of the NCHC standings with a 5-2-2-1 record. One of their top players is Isles prospect, Collin Adams.

Drafted in the sixth round of the 2016 draft, Adams is in his senior year at UND and is having yet another solid season for the Fighting Hawks. In ten games Adams has four goals and nine points. Three of those goals have come in his last three games.

In fact, as UND leaves the NCHC bubble for the Christmas period, Adams is on a four-game point streak.

Last season, Adams put up 28 points in 35 games playing alongside Jordan Kawaguchi and Grant Mismash. Kawaguchi was moved up to the top line this season and was replaced with sophomore winger Brendan Budy, and Adams hasn’t missed a step. Proving last year’s huge jump in production wasn’t a fluke.

If unsigned by the end of the year, Adams could become an unrestricted free agent, but if this production continues I’d imagine the Islanders put pen to paper.

The Rest of the Pool

Matias Rajaniemi (Pelicans)
Season stats: 18GP, 2A, 2pts,13:36ATOI

With the World Junior Championship underway soon, I checked in with Team Finland GM Kimmo Oikarinen on what role Islanders prospect Matias Rajaniemi might have. Here’s what he said:

"Matias is one of our eight defenseman´s and for sure he is an important player for us. He will in roster as well the others too. But now is too early to say minutes he is going to play. I believe he will be very important for us and roll will grow up longer we go and play the tournament."

Now, this what we should have expected to hear. Rajaniemi isn’t one of the top guys on the Finns blueline. But what’s clear is that he’ll be given the chance to make his case for a role in the squad.

Team Finland will play one pre-tournament game on December 22 against Team USA at 6:00 PM (ET). Canadian viewers can watch the WJC on TSN and American viewers can watch all the action on the NHL Network.

Simon Holmstrom (Vita Hasten)
Season stats: 11GP, 1G, 1A, 2pts

I also checked in with Team Sweden on Holmstrom’s role, but with the COVID-related issues that Team Sweden is currently having the team wasn’t able to get back to me.

On that note, two members of Sweden’s staff tested positive for the virus upon entering the Edmonton bubble. That development forced most of Team Sweden to quarantine until December 21. They won’t be able to play any pre-tournament games.

Sweden hit the ice for their first preliminary game on December 26 at 2:00 PM (ET) against the Czech Republic.

UPDATE: The IIHF has announced that after further testing everyone not already released from quarantine tested negative for the virus and have since been released from quarantine.

Otto Koivula (HIFK)
Season stats: 13GP, 3G, 8A, 11pts

Just like Oliver Wahlstrom, Otto Koivula’s loan spell has come to an end. While we didn’t see any Instagram posts from the player or team I check in with HIFK and they indicated the loan ended on December 17.

Anatoly Golyshev (Avtomobilist)
Season stats: 32GP, 10G, 12A, 22pts

I reached out to Avto for some different business the other day when they indicated that Golyshev may be out for a short period of time with an injury. They don’t deem the injury as serious so he may not miss any time at all.

Christian Krygier (D | Michigan State):
Season stats: 8GP, 1G, 1pt

In the first leg of a weekend series against Notre Dame, Krygier picked up 15 minutes for an illegal check from behind on Ryder Rolston. The penalty also resulted in a game ejection for the defenseman.

Jacob Pivonka (C | Notre Dame)
Season stats: 10GP, 1G, 2A, 3pts

It’s another meh-year on the stat sheet from the Islanders fourth-round pick in 2018. But the junior player is having a great year in the faceoff circle with a 62% FOW efficiency (131FOW of 213FO). He’s routinely out there for key draws for Notre Dame.

Robin Salo (Orebro)
Season stats: 12GP, 2G, 10A, 12pts, 22:43 ATOI

Salo is currently in Moscow on international team duty. He’s currently representing Finland at the Channel One Cup in Russia. The stats are very limited (shot data is hard to get) so it’s hard to know the impact without watching. Something I haven’t been able to do with start times quite early.

Finland is 1-3-0 ranking them third in the four-team tournament.

Want your voice heard? Join the Eyes On Isles team!

Write for us!

Here’s a lit of prospects in the Islanders system that have begun play in the 20-21 season but are currently inactive for various reasons:

Oliver Wahlstrom (AIK): 10GP, 4G, 4A, 8pts
Alexander Ljungkrantz (Brynas): J20 – 16GP, 8G, 7A, 15pts /SHL – 8GP, 0pts, 3:07ATOI
Reece Newkirk (Melville Millionaires): 12GP, 4G, 8A, 12pts
Henrik Tikkanen (IPK): 9GP, 2.55GAA, 0.901SV%
Ruslan Iskhakov (TPS): 15GP, 2G, 5A, 7pts
Jakub Skarek (Peliitat): 4GP, 4.44GAA, 0.833SV%
William Dufour (Voltigeurs): 8GP, 6G, 4A, 10pts
Alex Jefferies (Merrimack): 4GP, 3G, 2A, 5pts
Ben Mirageas (Providence): 3GP, 0pts
Logan Cockerill (Boston University): N/A