Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Isles In Contact With Niskanen/Richards Among Others

Update: According to Katie Strang, the Islanders have also shown interest in free agent net minder Justin Peters about potentially filling the teams backup goalie role behind newly acquired number one goalie Jaroslav Halak.

In 21 games for the Hurricanes last season, Peters had a 2.50 GAA and a 9.19 save percentage.

While Peters wouldn't be my first choice for the job, he would be a pretty solid acquisition for the Islanders.
Today marked the day that teams were allowed to begin speaking with perspective un restricted free agents regarding parameters of contracts and such.

Multiple reports suggest the Islanders have been among the most active teams today.  Arthur Staple from Newsday reports that ex Ranger center Brad Richards and former Penguins defenseman Matt Niskanen are believed to be two of the people the Islanders have contacted.

Now, Niskanen makes a lot of sense for us as our defense desperately could use the addition of another top 4 guy, especially with the uncertainty surrounding Lubomir Visnovsky.  However, Brad Richards doesn't make much sense with the Islanders dearth of centers already on the roster.
Like I said above, even though Niskanen will likely get really over paid, he would be a good pickup for us.  He would fill the top 4 need we currently have and also proved this year that he has the ability to put up points to.

Brad Richards coming here doesn't make much sense to me though.  We already have a dearth of centers and with our limited budget as is your going to take money to sign someone that doesn't fill much of a need.  That doesn't seem like a good use of already limited resources to me.  Also, if he is being looked at for wing, there is at least 4 or 5 other players on UFA alone not including in house options that I would put on the wing before looking at Richards.  That is even assuming Richards can play wing.

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