The New York Islanders hold a 2-2-1 record through five games; however, with goal scoring efforts the Islanders have gotten, they would hope they had another win or two. Isles defensive defenseman Scott Mayfield has not played since the opening night win over the Buffalo Sabres on October 14th.
Mayfield blocked a one time blast off his skate boot off the stick of Rasmus Dahlin with 2:09 left in the third period of the Islanders eventual 3-2 win. Mayfield has been out of the lineup since. His absence is obvious.
Samuel Bolduc has come in for the Islanders to replace Mayfield. The 22-year-old is still learning on the fly how to play the professional game. This has also forced Sebastian Aho to play on his offside point. The Islanders poor right-handed defense organizational depth is on display early in the 23-24 campaign.
Not good.
Without Mayfield, the Islanders have surrendered 15 goals over four games with Mayfield out of the lineup, including allowing four powerplay goals to the Devils. A season ago, Mayfield appeared in all 82 regular season games and logged roughly 21 minutes a night, including 2.5 minutes per game on average on the penalty kill. That number is the highest among all Islander blue liners.
Long story short, the Islanders back end is heavily missing their 6′ 4” stay-at-home defenseman.
Mayfield has not gone on IR and has remained skating on his own for the past few days now. Isles head coach Lane Lambert has updated his status accordingly, noting he has skated on his own over this stretch. The Isles expect to be without Mayfield on Thursday night, hoping to snap their three game skid when the Ottawa Senators come to town.
ITR 40: Headed For A Repeat? – Inside The Rink
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