Islanders prospects daily: Ruslan Iskhakov goes to Liiga 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.

New York Islanders prospects in action yesterday (2/5/21)

• Ruslan Iskhakov (TPS)
  • Stats: 1G, 5SOG, 37.5FOW%, 15:29TOI
• Bridgeport Sound Tigers
  • Felix Bibeau: 2A, 3SOG
  • Samuel Bolduc: 1A, 1SOG
  • Otto Koivula: 1G, 1SOG

With a 3-2 win, Ruslan Iskhakov and TPS are off the the Liiga finals. For his part, Iskhakov had the opening goal for TPS with a nice low and powerful wrist shot from the top of the faceoff circle. In this series, Iskhakov put up four points in the finals three games. TPS won all three.

Now they go to the finals to face top seed Lukko. A team they’ve only been able to best once this season and that was all the way back on October 3.

Here is the schedule for their best-of-five series:

• Game 1: May 7
• Game 2: May 8
• Game 3: May 10
• Game 4: May 11 (if needed)
• Game 5: May 13 (if needed)

The Sound Tigers won yet again. They are now 5-0-1 over their last six games. Leading the way, again, are some of the Sound Tigers youth players. Bibeau, Bolduc, and Koivula had four points between them yesterday. Koivula would add the shoutout winner later in the game.

New York Islanders prospects in action today (4/5/21)

• Bridgeport Sound Tigers

It’s a shame the Sound Tigers season is coming to a close already. Today is their last game of the regular season. Normally the AHL season is 76 games long, with game 24 today that’s about 30% of a regular year. And the Sound Tigers are just starting to sort themselves out.

Like I said, they’re 5-0-1 over their last six games. They still hold a terrible record (0.391 points percentage), but it seems that Brent Thompson has tapped into something of late. Leading the way during that stretch are a number of the up-and-coming players in the system:

• Durandeau: 1G, 3A
• Bolduc: 2G, 1A
• Jenkins: 1G, 2A
• Bibeau: 1G, 2A
• Koivula: 2A

Veteran Cole Bardreau leads them all with a seven-game point streak (3G, 4A). With vets like Bardreau playing well and the young talent starting to flourish it really is a shame that the season comes to a close today.

On Anatolii Golyshev; he’s out of quarantine now. He was at the Islanders-Rangers game the other night at the Coliseum. But he’s still not hitting the ice for Bridgeport. With today being the final game of the year I doubt he gets in the lineup as well. I would imagine he’s gets recalled from his AHL loan that was initiated on March 19.