Islanders prospects daily: Robin Salo and Orebro open semi-finals

Here’s you’re daily New York Islanders prospects report. You’ll find out who played yesterday (and how they did), who’s playing today (and what to look for), and every few updates I’ll tell you how these prospects have moved up (or down) in my prospects rankings.

Prospects in action yesterday (21/4/21)

• Henrik Tikkanen (IPK)*

IPK won their bronze medal game 4-0. Henrik Tikkanen was on the bench watching it all go down as the team’s backup goalie. Assuming he’s no longer needed with his parent club (KalPa), this means his 2020-21 season is now over.

It’s been an up-and-down one. He missed a ton of time this year with the Mestis league being paused for a considerable portion of the year due to the pandemic. But he did earn a call up to the SM-Liiga, where he impressed his parent club with some very solid play. Here are his stats across both leagues this year:

• Mestis: 12GP, 6-1-5 record, 3.25GAA and 0.877SV%
• SM-Liiga: 7GP, 2-3-2 record, 1.94GAA and 0.921SV%

He’s one of only two goalies in the system, but I still think he’ll stay in Finland next season but he’ll play in the SM-Liiga full-time. Which, according to KalPa GM Anssi Laine, that was always the plan.

New York Islanders prospects in action today (22/4/21)

• Ruslan Iskhakov (TPS)
• Matias Rajaniemi (Pelicans)
• Robin Salo (Orebro)

Matias Rajaniemi is playing today. I still haven’t heard from his team as to why he hasn’t been in the lineup since April 6, but I would have to assume squad rotation is the reason.

With the best-of-five series between TPS and the Pelicans even at 1-1, today’s game (game 3) could be decisive in the opening-round series.

It’s the final four in Sweden. Robin Salo and Orebro start their second-round matchup against Vaxjo today. While Vaxjo finished at the top of the SHL regular-season standings and Orebro finished sixth, these teams are an even matchup so this could be an interesting best-of-five series.