Islanders prospects daily: Rajaniemi playing, Ho-Sang a maybe

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.

With no prospects in action yesterday there isn’t a stats update nor is there an update to the rankings. BUT we have two players (potentially) in action today.

New York Islanders prospects daily

Prospects (and players in the system) in Action Today

• Matias Rajaniemi (Pelicans)
• Josh Ho-Sang (Linkoping)*

*Waiting for the official lineup

The confidence Matias Rajaniemi was riding after winning a bronze medal with Team Finland and the World Juniors has clearly dissipated. After winning that medal, Rajaniemi returned to Liiga action and put up four points in six games.

Those four points account for nearly 45% of his production during the year. He has three points over the next 20 games.

Points aren’t everything for Rajaniemi’s game, of course, the young man is still learning to play a man’s game.

(The Pelicans lineup has been released at the time of writing and Rajaniemi is on the top pair.)

You’d think that point would be everything for Josh Ho-Sang‘s game. The talented forward has two goals in four games for Linkoping but hasn’t played over his team’s last two games. We’ll see if that changes today.

It’s been two weeks since Linkoping has seen the ice. That break should give Ho-Sang the chance to catch up with his teammates and it should also allow him to figure what he needs to do within the Linkoping system.

Ho-Sang hasn’t been on the ice since March 4 when Linkoping defeated Farjestad 5-2. Ho-Sang collected the second goal in his team’s goal-fest. He played 7:01 that night. It seems that was due to his insufficient defensive game within the Linkoping system.

With so long between games, the team should have been able to direct him on what they need from him in the D-zone. At least enough to warrant a return to the ice. Again, we’ll see later today when the lineup is announced.