Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Islanders’ D getting crowded with four-year deal for Adam Pelech

Dallas Stars v New York Islanders

NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 19: Adam Pelech #50 of the New York Islanders hits the water bottle prior to the game against the Dallas Stars at the Barclays Center on January 19, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Getty Images

If nothing else, quantity probably won’t be much of an issue for the New York Islanders’ defense in 2017-18.

GM Garth Snow locked down another blueliner on Monday, as he signed Adam Pelech to a four-year contract. The deal is worth $1.6 million per season ($6.4M overall), according to Newsday’s Arthur Staple.

Pelech, 22, played 44 games at the NHL level in 2016-17, collecting 10 points and struggling from an analytics standpoint. He also appeared in nine games with the Islanders in 2015-16.

Staple notes that this could make for a logjam - or, to put a positive spin on it, make for a lot of competition - particularly if the Isles can strike a deal with Calvin de Haan soon. If that pans out, they’d have eight defensemen who would need to go through waivers.

On the bright side, the Islanders’ defense looks respectable on paper, and that’s assuming that Pelech doesn’t take a step forward. If he does, this could be another respectable, under-the-radar move by Snow.

At the moment, it mainly seems like adding depth and flexibility, which isn’t the worst thing, either.