Islanders prospects daily: Countdown to Liiga playoffs

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.

Prospects update from yesterday

• Josh Ho-Sang (Linkoping)

Josh didn’t play yesterday. Again. It’s a real mystery as to why he isn’t playing. I’ve reached out to the club a few times but still haven’t received an answer from them at the time of writing.

The team was on a three-game winning streak before yesterday’s game but with a 7-1 loss to top-five side Lulea maybe Ho-Sang steps back into the lineup for the final game of the season. But you can argue the team isn’t going to rock the boat too much with a spot in the playoffs potentially on the line.

New York Islanders Prospects in Action Today

• Ruslan Iskhakov (TPS)
• Matias Rajaniemi (Pelicans)

The points are coming quite easily for Ruslan Iskhakov right now. He hasn’t posted back-to-back games without a point since February 19. But other parts of his game aren’t coming as easily for him. His faceoff numbers haven’t been great lately.

Over the season, Iskhakov, who’s been TPS’s second-line center for some time now, is averaging a 41.48 FOW%. Over his last nine games, he’s been below 40% six times. He had a dismal 11% two games ago.

TPS only has a handful of games left before heading to the playoffs. Three of their remaining seven games are against the top team in the league.

Matias Rajaniemi isn’t in the lineup today. The Isles defensive prospect was listed on the team sheet for the last game on March 25 but didn’t actually play. I’ve reached out to the team for clarification but haven’t received a response by the time of writing.

Just like TPS, Lahti has seven games remaining in their 20-21 regular-season schedule.

KalPa is in action today, but Isles goalie prospect Henrik Tikkanen isn’t starting nor is he on the bench as a backup. It seems like he is back in the Mestis league with IPK. A few days ago I noticed that IPK was playing 28-year-old Henri Tikkanen in nets and thought that was just a huge coincidence.

Turns out that was the Isles 2020 seventh-round pick playing and that an error had occurred with the service I use to monitor European lineups. Tikkanen played on March 26 allowing three goals on 19 shots for a 0.864SV%.