Saturday, December 31, 2016

Islanders Demote Halak

On Saturday morning (in the West), the news came down that goaltender Jaroslav Halak had cleared waivers, as expected, and immediately, the New York Islanders demoted him to Bridgeport of the AHL, where he will report right away.

The relationship between the Islanders and the goalie had really soured and having the 3-goalie system must have been somewhat aggravating, to say the least, for the veteran Slovak keeper and since there was no takers on the trade market, the next move was to see if there were any takers on the waiver wire, before demoting him, to which, there wasn't.

Halak made 21 appearances, through 20 starts, but could only muster up 6 wins and a shutout for 14 points, which has him ranked 280th overall in pool scoring, having splitting the duties with Thomas Greiss and J-F Berube.

Troy's team is taking a pretty good hit here, more so for the goalie survivor pool, than in the overall standings.  Troy's mini-game participation has way more value than his team, that sits 25th overall in the standings.  Troy will have to lean on Tuukka Rask in Boston for his wins on a weekly basis, unless Halak can somehow find his way back into the NHL, either through an injury to a teammate or an injury somewhere else, which could lead to a trade out of town.  We could be on Troy watch often in the goalie survivor pool, if the Bruins slide.

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