EAST MEADOW, N.Y. — Josh Ho-Sang made his return to the Islanders on Sunday, called up after ripping through the last month in the AHL.
He’s basically here as a stand-in, though. The Islanders, coming off a rally to win in Detroit on Saturday after seeing captain Anders Lee steamrolled by Wings defenseman Niklas Kronwall, are at an emotional high point of the season 28 games in. No one in charge of making the roster decisions said Ho-Sang’s recall was anything but a need for a healthy body up front, with Lee and Tom Kuhnhackl missing practice.
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It’s pretty clear that if Bridgeport had its usual Sunday game, Ho-Sang wouldn’t have been summoned. Ho-Sang practiced in Lee’s spot and Barry Trotz didn’t give much of an indication that Bridgeport’s leading scorer would get in Monday’s game against the Penguins unless Lee, still nursing a sore face after taking Kronwall’s shoulder to his head, were to miss the game.
Kuhnhackl, who missed Saturday’s game and is considered day to day, is likely out for Monday. But Trotz has very defined roles for his forwards and Ho-Sang does not fill the third-line need.
“I don’t know if I wouldn’t hesitate, it would be a consideration,” Trotz said. ” (Ross) Johnston’s done a real good job in that role and I’m not going to break up the (Casey) Cizikas line. We’ll see where we are tomorrow with injuries, all the stuff we’ve got going on. That will dictate how we proceed.”
Lou Lamoriello was equally blunt regarding Ho-Sang, who is third in the AHL with 20 assists and is 2-16-18 in his last 17 games for the Sound Tigers. “Only as a depth player at this point,” Lamoriello said. “He’s playing extremely well in Bridgeport. It’ll be a coaching decision whether he gets in or not.”
With all that cold water poured on Ho-Sang’s arrival, the 22-year-old wing is enjoying his best stretch as a pro after last season’s December demotion from Doug Weight’s team. A broken hand soon followed that Ho-Sang played through in the AHL, but not to much avail.
Then came his chat with The Athletic in late March that seemed to cement his standing with the former Isles regime. With Lamoriello and then Trotz on board, Ho-Sang tried to dedicate himself in the summer to starting fresh and approaching the final season of his entry-level contract with a different outlook.
It didn’t last. He took what the Islanders termed a personal day on the second day of training camp and was sent down after two uninspired preseason appearances, barely getting a real look with a trimmed-down NHL camp roster.
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After a slow start in the AHL, he has turned up the production. Two scouts who regularly see the Sound Tigers said the attention to detail can still be intermittent for Ho-Sang, but he looks far more engaged than he did during last season’s AHL stint.
“We’ve had no issues with him that I’m aware of, and I speak to (assistant GM) Chris (Lamoriello) every day,” Lou Lamoriello said. “Things have been fine as far as I’m concerned. Have not had any problems. I wasn’t here last year so I don’t look back. I thought he had an excellent training camp — didn’t play very well, but as far as handling whatever the past might be, what I don’t see myself I don’t worry about.
“If we didn’t think something of him, he wouldn’t be here today. Like any young player that has potential, he has to actuate it.”
Ho-Sang didn’t say much of note in his brief chat with reporters after Sunday’s practice. He declined an interview with your intrepid reporter two weeks ago on a visit to Bridgeport, choosing to stay mum rather than risk the wrath of any of his bosses should he, as he usually does, say something candid.
The best he offered on Sunday was this: “I don’t worry too much what anyone thinks about me, to be honest.”
Ho-Sang being up with the Isles for the first time in just about a calendar year might have been the big story. But, given the events of Saturday night in Detroit, the Islanders are more focused on harnessing the raw emotions from that 3-2 win over the Red Wings and taking the momentum into Monday’s visit from the Penguins, the first of three at “home” this week — Monday and Saturday (Detroit again) are in Nassau Coliseum and the Golden Knights come to Brooklyn on Wednesday.
There have been times over the past decade of primarily Islander futility when the lack of respect from around the league brought the room to a boil. Feb. 11, 2011 immediately comes to mind — it did for Matt Martin, who along with Josh Bailey are the only two Islanders remaining from Fight Night at the Coli. Saturday’s response to Kronwall’s legal hit on Lee, which featured Bailey, of all people, clubbing Kronwall to the ice later in the first period and then fighting Dylan Larkin, was hardly subdued, but it was pretty measured.
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And, ultimately, successful.
“When you think about that Pittsburgh game, a few others that come to mind, there’s definitely examples, but the game’s changed a lot,” Martin said. “There’s not as much avenging, fighting, bench-clearers. Last night was an instance of seeing a friend and a teammate laying on the ice and we wanted to go out and make a statement. Everybody stepped up, gutting out a win after what wasn’t a great start. Overall, it was a newer school approach to that kind of game. Things have changed a lot since I got into the league. Just a good character win. You see what you’re made of after a game like that.”
Anders Lee gets demolished by Niklas Kronwall pic.twitter.com/Mz589otgvI
— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) December 9, 2018
Bailey’s third NHL fight — his first, coincidentally, was on that February night nearly eight years ago — wasn’t necessarily the inspiration for the way the Islanders played the final 40 minutes on Saturday. But, to use a Trotz phrase, it pulled the team in. For years we’ve heard about how tight-knit the Isles rooms have been. Saturday was the first real test of that in the post-John Tavares era and the response was worth noting.
“From our standpoint there was no doubt from that point on,” Trotz said of Bailey’s fight. “We were winning that game.”
As an aside, the Islanders were extremely unhappy with whoever decided to post replays of the Kronwall hit on the Little Caesars Arena scoreboard with accompanying music that included the line, “Keep your head up,” as Lee’s blood was being scraped off the ice. Lamoriello isn’t one to engage in tit-for-tat arena shenanigans Saturday when the Wings are in town, but that moment was noted by plenty in the Isles organization.
Ho-Sang may deserve a longer look than he’s surely going to get this week, even if he does manage to play on Monday. But Lamoriello and Trotz have stuck to their veteran-first approach through just about 35 percent of the season. The results haven’t been overwhelming or even acceptable at times, but this team does have character.
Ho-Sang, to paraphrase Winston Wolf, is a character, as well as a genuine talent. That’s not enough to crack Lamoriello’s and Trotz’s roster except in a pinch. As much as you may want to argue with that thinking, it isn’t going to change. It’s fair to wonder whether Ho-Sang will even be back again this season, once he inevitably returns to Bridgeport.
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There won’t be a lot of nights like Saturday, when emotion carries the Islanders to victory. They could use some more skill to carry them night after night. Even though the Islanders didn’t exact old-school revenge on the Wings on Saturday, they are rooted in old-school ways of development. Ho-Sang will have to live with it, along with a very brief stay.
(Top photo of Josh Ho-Sang: Stephane Dube / Getty Images)
Arthur Staple has covered New York hockey for The Athletic since 2019, initially on the Islanders beat before moving over to primarily focus on the Rangers in 2021. Previously, he spent 20 years at Newsday, where he covered everything from high schools to the NFL. Follow Arthur on Twitter @stapeathletic
