Islanders: Anders Lee Officially Done For The Year

Lou Lamoriello told us some pretty tough news today. Islanders Captain, Anders Lee will get surgery this week and he will miss the remainder of the season. This is a huge blow as he was the lead goal scorer for the team.

In 27 games he had 12 goals and 19 points to his name which paced out over a full 82 game season is 58 points and 36 goals. After just 20 last year, he was on pace to get back on track to his 30+ goals that we were used to seeing.

Not only will the Isles miss his on-ice appearance but they will miss the leadership qualities that he brings. For the first time since the injury, it really looked like the team missed him last night in their lackluster 3-1 loss to Washington.

Unfortunately, it was a torn ACL for Lee. This was the play that caused the injury back on March 11:

It wasn’t a dirty play by any means, it’s just one of those unfortunate wrong place at the wrong time things for Lee as he and Pavel Zacha got tangled and he went down awkwardly. So far, the Islanders have put Kieffer Bellows up his spot on line one.

Bellows has been solid, scoring three goals in three games since being put on that line but the team may look to add a rental option who is more proven. Kyle Palmieri or Taylor Hall could make sense as they’re both on expiring contracts and their teams are out of it.

Luckily for the Islanders, they have three second-round picks over the next two years so theoretically they can afford to move two of them, which is the anticipated starting point for at least Taylor Hall, Palmieri may be less.

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Wishing Anders Lee a speedy recovery. It looked bad when it happened but I was holding out hope that it would just be a couple of weeks. This is a major blow, and can’t be understated.