Matthew Kessel

And then Logan Stanley.

and Tony D'Angelo as the third pair with Matt Kessel and Scott Mayfield as your extra defenseman.

Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov are your goaltenders with Sorokin obviously expected to start tonight when the Islanders take on the Toronto Maple Leafs.

And I think Look, there is no doubt that this Islanders team will miss Matt Barzal if he's not able to play.

All right, we'll move forward to the defensemen now.

And they got, for the defensemen on the team, you got Tony D'Angelo, Ryan Pollock, Matt Kessel, Alexander Romanov, Scott Mayfield, Matthew Schaefer, Adam Pellick, and Logan Stanley.

Oh my goodness.

That's all I can say about this.

What the hell? Then you really can't do it because those guys can't defend good enough to help D'Angelo, and that's going to make D'Angelo look worse.

I mean, you know what you're going to get with D'Angelo? Not the best defenseman, but he is solid enough forward-wise where you know he's a good third-pairing guy on defense.

If he had somebody like an Adam Pellick with him, instead he's going to have Matt Kessel, Scott Mayfield, or Logan Stanley, and that's just not going to work.

Ryan Pollock, he's just on and off.

for what's going to work some more news uh logan stanley signed with the islanders um over the weekend as some more defensive depth he's a left side defenseman he's six foot seven he's huge um and brings a physical element uh to the back end and i didn't see this coming because we all thought isaiah george was going to take the spot he didn't we'll get more from uh Stefan on that is he got sent down to Hamilton and it just like, it bodes the question, like where's Scott Mayfield going to go? Cause there's been some reports on his job, not being safe for the first time in a while.

And then Matt Kessel has been involved too.

And he's played pretty well in the preseason and he's still up on the NHL roster.

So, um, Who knows exactly what's going to happen? We'll get more insight on that.

Obviously, he's a content machine for us, too, and now keeping it on the back end, obviously, you mentioned Logan Stanley before, and now kind of the whole... like bottom part of the defensive core has been up for debate this whole training camp, obviously with Scott Mayfield's role seemingly being a little bit in doubt for the first time in his career.

Isaiah George had the inside track for that job.

And it seems like with him going to Hamilton that he obviously lost that for now and Matt Kessel is still here.

So what does the Logan Stanley signing mean for all of their roles and for the, you know, the bottom parts of this defensive core and kind of what are you seeing on all the other guys involved there and what's going on?

Look, all I'm going to say here is he's the eighth defenseman.

Matt Kessel, to me, earned his spot on this team.

He absolutely deserves it.

This whole preseason right-handed stick can go out there, and he seems very poised with the puck.

He's very confident with himself, playing the role of that 6th, 7th D-man.

And now you've got Logan Stanley over here, too.

can come in can be physical he might be on that you know he might be a part of that third pairing Scott Mayfield maybe you put Phil Kessel Phil Kessel Matt Kessel in there who knows okay I like what I see I like what I see from Logan Stanley to be honest with you and even DeBoer said he played a similar system up in Winnipeg Like the boys trying to implement here with the Islanders and when he was with Dallas.

So overall, man, I'll say this looking in the camera right now.

They're going to give him a day off.

off hopefully that's all it is there's no issues with Shen he didn't look great skate I would honestly had him escape another day but this is what the Islanders are going with and as you'll notice on defense there is someone very obviously missing who does not need to play in the preseason that is Matthew Schaefer and what is looking like tonight is going to shake out to be is this a four-way tryout for one spot between Kessel Mayfield I'm sorry Kessel Mayfield George and Kayshawn a that is right i think kate sean hson legitimately has a chance to make this team considering how much they're trying to decide between kessel george and mayfield and sorry two of these players can make the islanders team i misspoke there but two of them are going to get cut and the fact that sean hson is playing in this game at all right uh if you were kind of just deciding between three guys it would make sense to just play six defensemen and compare them one on one on one The fact that Kashawn Aitchison is in here, I think he is very unlikely to make the team just because I think there makes more sense for him to go to the AHL and develop the rest of that offense and really become that true rover number two defenseman.

He can be, of course, number two because, you know, Matthew Schaefer, all the teams at this point with how good this kid is looking in preseason, you'd be looking at him as like a potential number one type fringe option.

He has been that good.

I think of the options, right? Between him, Mayfield, Isaiah George, Mayfield.

And who else was the other one? Sorry, there's so many names to go through.

And Kessel.

Of those four players, I think Kashawn Aitchison has been the best.

Go sit down at the AHL level."

Yeah, my argument was he should've been playing over Matt Kessel last season, but-

Which is fine, but the Blues continuously told you, "No, he shouldn't."

Yeah.