Islanders officially announce signing of Anatolii Golyshev

On Friday at 3 PM, the New York Islanders announced that they had signed Anatolii Golyshev to a one-year two-way deal. Classic Lou Lamoriello move to announce a signing late in the week like this.

The deal is a single-year contract and is a two-way deal. The fact that they didn’t call it a one-year ‘entry-level’ contract as they did when Sorokin signed last year is a bit odd. Maybe there’ll be more on that once the contract is made ‘public’.

But for now, Golyshev has put pen to paper on his max one-year ELC (all ELC’s are two-way deals).

New York Islanders sign AnatoliiGolyshev

Golyshev comes to the Island after being selected by the Isles in the fourth-round of the 2016 NHL draft. He’ll join fellow 2016 Isles draft class members Kieffer Bellows, Otto Koivula, and Nick Pastujov (who’s playing in the ECHL this year).

In his eight years with KHL Yekaterinburgh Avtomobilist he scored 208 points over 368 games.

He comes to the Island not as a prospect but as a finished product. The 26-year-old established himself as a hard-working top-six player over in Russia. He may not impress you with his size (he stands 5’8″ and weighs 187lbs), but he will impress you with his work rate.

You shouldn’t expect him to become a top-six player in North America. I’d be surprised if he can produce more than 40 points over a full 82 game season.

That’s not a knock by any means. Any Islanders will gladly take a middle-six winger who can score up to 40 points in a year for free.

Will he step into the NHL squad right away? Probably not. It would be a surprise to see him slot in right away. Playing in Bridgeport for a few games is certainly what will happen. Remember, he still has to quarantine before he sees the ice, so it’s going to be a while before we see him in either league.

Also, the Isles are spelling his first name with two i’s so that’s what I’m going with. It’s a more direct translation of his name from Russian, but I’d still pronounce it like it’s a ‘y’.