Vasicek Joins the Middle on the Island

The Islanders remained busy this week by adding Josef Vasicek to the mix down the middle for the upcoming season. Vasicek signed a 1-year deal worth $750,000 and will join a long list of new faces to arrive on the Island this summer.

Vasicek scored 6 goals and 22 points last season between Carolina and Nashville in only 63 games. He didn't pick up a great deal of points, but in the two cities last season, he didn't see a great deal of ice time, only averaging about 13 minutes a game. He might be able to jump into a role which grants him more ice-time, possibly in the third line spot and may earn some more time if injuries start to plague the club. He's a long shot of a sleeper who may come around during a mid-season waiver draft.

Bill Guerin	Mike Sillinger	Miroslav Satan
Ruslan Fedotenko	Mike Comrie	Trent Hunter
Richard Park	Jon Sim	Shawn Bates
Jeremy Collition	Josef Vasicek	Chris Simon
	Jeff Tambellini

Marc-Andre Bergeron	Radek Martinek
Andy Sutton	Chris Campoli
Brendan Witt	Aaron Johnson

Rick DiPietro

Wade Dubielewicz

The addition of Vasicek down the middle has bumped Jeff Tambellini from the team update chart, but you can't count out the young forward to possibly make the cut in training camp. He will remain as the fifth centre, as Chris Simon still has games left on his suspension, but will still count against the cap.

This week also saw the unveiling of the club's new uniforms. They join the Buffalo Sabres with having the players' number on the front of the uniform, which I have heard will be a standard among all clubs in the coming years. The Islanders home jersey will have many of the same colours as it normally does doesn't look too bad. Since there is no third jerseys this season, the Islanders will not have their all-orange jerseys, which haven't been overly popular in some circles.


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