Adam Pelech

And part of the problem is that there is nobody else on the blue line.

I mean, they mostly paired him with Pelech.

But Adam Pelech, Ryan Polak, they looked slow out there.

They just looked a step behind, and it, it's kinda disappointing to see how they played.

By the way, Tony DeAngelo, and he, he also turned a few pucks over.

But when two guys just say, "You know what? Maybe we should drop the gloves and fire up our teammates," that, that I don't need in the game.

I wanna see fights for regular, real reasons.

I'm not sure about the Pelech-Bjorkstrand fight, which came with 13 seconds left [laughs] in the game, roughly.

Yep, yep

... where he got the-- He skated from above the right circle over to the left circle, got a, basically a handoff pass from Pelech and then cut back in on the right.

And I was just like, oh my goodness, he did this all in like one fluid skate, like without stopping and starting, just kind of moving.

And I was just like, go- we are blown away.

Logan Stanley's not gonna be here.

We'll see about Romanov, whose no-trade clause kicks in July 1st.

Pelech's probably gonna get, I feel like, traded at some point.

So there's a lot of moving parts, and, and D'Angelo obviously is a stopgap.

I think one of the most interesting things, and, and you and I have, you know, talked about it, kind of wondered whether this, this was gonna happen or not, but Matthew Schaefer ends up on the right side.

He's playing with Adam Pelech.

What do you think about that so far?

You know, it clearly, it's gonna work because whatever Matthew Schaefer does is gonna work.

He's not catching anybody by surprise.

But maybe seeing him on the right side is a little bit of a surprise [chuckles] and maybe there is that small element of that, that you're not gonna target him because you know always where he's gonna be.

And I think playing with Pelech, who's really the, if there's a number, if there's a second-best defenseman on this roster, it's Adam Pelech.

That's the way it's always been.

He's not gonna be a guy who's primarily getting points.

But, uh, we n- we see w- how, Islander fans, how important it is to have a great defensive defenseman, right? Adam Pelech for years has been a backbone for this team.

I, I truly think Malte Gustafsson is really rapidly approaching being the next Adam Pelech, right? The p- Pelech replacement, or maybe even upgrade for the New York Islanders, and this is really encouraging.

This is a prospect I'm gonna be watching really closely this season.

Uh, it's a little harder to get access to him as opposed to K'Shawn Aitchison, who I'm definitely gonna be checking out tomorrow before the Islanders game at 7:00.

This team really needs their best players to go above and beyond.

And what DeBoer is trying to do, I think Is he's trying to create a very dynamic pairing with, uh, Schaefer and Pelech that can honestly carry the team.

And what he's trying to do with these other pairs is simply function.

Like, can you just give us noth- like, can it just be nothing while they're on the ice, and can these guys just kinda carry us through? That's what I think he's trying to figure out, and I think he'll learn [laughs] I think he'll learn pretty quickly that the D'Angelo-Stanley pairing is not as good.

No, is it? No, sorry, the partner.

Um, Pelech.

Pelech is with-

Pelech.

Sorry.

Yeah, Adam Pelech is his partner.

Pelech.

Yeah.