Islanders prospects daily: Two Finnish based prospects in action

Here’s your daily recap of yesterday’s games, updates, and rankings for New York Islanders prospects and players within the system.

Welcome to your daily recap for New York Islanders prospects! You’ll find an update on stats from prospects in action yesterday, a round-up of who’s playing today, and I’ll tell you how some of those prospects in action yesterday are doing in my prospects rankings.

Prospect Update from Yesterday

There were no Islanders prospects in action yesterday.

Prospects in Action Today

• Matias Rajaniemi (Pelicans)
• Henrik Tikkanen (KalPa)*

Matias has played consistently since that odd “squad rotation” took him out of the lineup for a single game. In his last four games, the 18-year-old is getting about 16:00 minutes a night and getting at least one shot on net a night and even converting one for his third goal of the season.

The Pelicans want more out of the young man. He’s a good shutdown player right now, but getting a bit more offense out of his is desired.

The Lahti side has slipped a bit in the standings. They sit seventh at the moment. A win won’t move them up the standings (things are based on points-percentage right now), but it bridges the game between them and Ilves in sixth (1.70 Pts%).

Henrik Tikkanen won’t start this game for KalPa, but he’s on the bench as the team’s backup. He’s had a strong start to his career at the Liiga level with a 2-3-2 record and averaging a 1.94GAA and 0.921 SV%.

According to his GM, he’s ahead of schedule with his development. KalPa didn’t think he’d factor at the Liiga level until last year. They were quite surprised at how quickly he adapted to the higher quality and how well he’s doing.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see Tikkanen in North America for 21-22, but KalPa is hoping to keep him around one more year. We’ll see the Isles agree to that.