The Islanders have now lost the services of their most-active goaltender this season, as Al Montoya was knocked out of Tuesday's game against the Jets, when Evander Kane ploughed into him in the crease, forcing the keeper to leave the game and not be around for the shootout victory, which Evgeni Nabokov, his replacement, ended up getting credit for.
The word from the Islanders camp is that Montoya has suffered a concussion and he will be out of the line-up for at least a week, but we'll have him listed as out indefinitely. I would imagine that Nabokov will get the bulk of the work now, but the team has called up Anders Nilsson on Wednesday and he has already seen time in the crease this year.
Montoya has appeared in 17 games for the Islanders, amassing a record of 6-5-3 with no shutouts on the year, good enough for only 12 points in the hockey pool this season. That has him ranked 304th overall in points, 39th among all goalies, good enough to be an okay back-up. Unfortunately for the Islanders, that is the best they have at the moment and they will need some pretty big things from Nabokov, if they want to move up the Eastern Conference standings.
Definitely bad news for Peter H., who hasn't improved since the first waiver draft of the year and goaltending has played a big role in that. Peter ranks among the bottom third in points from his goaltending this year, which has put him down in 20th place for the last few weeks and an injury like this is not going to make things any better for him. Montoya joins Milan Michalek and Devin Setoguchi on the injured list for Peter's team, those are three important pieces to be missing at the moment.
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