The Islanders are down another starting blueliner as Sebastian Aho was placed on injured reserve, retroactive to Nov. 24, due to an upper-body injury, the team announced on Monday.
Aho suffered the injury during Friday’s victory in Ottawa over the Senators, leaving just 3:07 after the opening face-off and just over 40 seconds after the Islanders lost top-pairing defenseman Adam Pelech.
He’ll be forced to miss at least seven days from the retroactive designation of his injury, meaning he could return for their Dec. 2 game in Florida against the Panthers.
Pelech, who is also dealing with an upper-body injury, was placed on long-term injured reserve (LTIR), on Saturday. He’ll miss at least 10 games.
Designating Pelech on LTIR allowed the Islanders to exceed their salary cap by claiming veteran defenseman Mike Reilly and his $1 million cap hit off waivers from the Panthers on Saturday. New York also recalled Grant Hutton from Bridgeport for Saturday night’s 1-0 shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers.
After a short demotion back down to Bridgeport, Hutton was back on the NHL roster Monday — Aho’s IR designation opened up the roster spot necessary to bring the 28-year-old back. He played 10:11 on Saturday night, which was his first game back in the NHL in two years.
He’ll provide New York with some more blueline depth and a right-handed option to potentially work on the third pairing alongside Reilly. Samuel Bolduc, also a lefty, has played limited minutes in his 11 games of relief this season while Scott Mayfield and Pelech were shelved.
