Only three of the defensemen the Islanders started on opening night are healthy, and they have acquired another body to fill the ever-expanding hole on the blue line.
Ryan Pulock became the latest blueliner to suffer an injury as the Islanders placed him on injured reserve with a lower-body issue Friday, retroactive to Thursday night.
He did not play the final 8:14 of the 7-3 win over Columbus, evidently as a result of the injury.
Due to the seven-day minimum time on injured reserve, Pulock will miss at least the next three games against the Kings, Maple Leafs and Ducks before becoming eligible for activation against the Bruins on Friday.
Immediately after announcing Pulock’s move to injured reserve, the Islanders announced that they had traded for Blues defenseman Robert Bortuzzo, sending a seventh-round pick for the upcoming draft back to St. Louis in return.
Bortuzzo, 34, has played just four games for the Blues this season.
He has been the seventh defenseman for much of his 10-year career in St. Louis, playing over 45 games just twice in his 10 years with the Blues.
For the Islanders, Bortuzzo falls into the same category as Mike Reilly, who was claimed off waivers after Adam Pelech (upper-body/long-term injured reserve) and Sebastian Aho (upper body/injured reserve) went down on Nov. 24 in Ottawa, insofar as being a veteran body who should be more dependable than their internal options.
At a $950,000 cap hit, that might even represent good value for the Islanders, who would have otherwise been forced to play a third pair of Samuel Bolduc and Grant Hutton against the Kings on Saturday.
Bortuzzo, a righty, figures to step into the role Pulock had been playing alongside the young Bolduc, though the potential return of Aho — who has skated with the team recently — could cause those plans to change.
The Islanders have started just nine games this season with an entirely healthy back end, with one of those being the win in Ottawa, where Pelech and Aho both went down during the first period.
Mayfield got hurt toward the end of the opening night win over the Sabres, with Pelech then suffering a lower-body injury upon Mayfield’s return.
There was a stretch of six games where all six D-men were healthy, but that ended in Ottawa.
When Pelech comes off LTIR, which he is eligible to do starting Dec. 19, the Islanders will need to cull down their roster in order to stay cap compliant, which could put any of Reilly, Bortuzzo, Bolduc or Hutton at risk of waivers.
But that is a bridge the Islanders will cross once they get there, and since Pelech has not yet begun skating, it is not entirely clear when they will do so.
For now, they are still in triage.
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