The New York Islanders have activated forward Hudson Fasching off of injured reserve per Stefen Rosner of The Hockey News. Fasching has missed the Islanders’ last 13 games with an upper-body injury in the team’s January 5th game against the Boston Bruins.
He was designated as day-to-day in the immediate wake of the injury, but was quickly downgraded to week-to-week, then earned an injured reserve placement on January 17th. He was assigned to a minor league conditioning stint at the start of February and appeared in two games with the Bridgeport Islanders. The Islanders recalled Fasching on Tuesday and are expected to bring him on their upcoming two-game road trip. Defenseman Scott Mayfield won’t be going on the road trip, per Rosner, as he continues to sit out day-to-day with a lower-body injury, and has been placed on IR to make room on the roster.
Fasching has been a fourth-line forward for the Islanders all year long. He’s appeared in 199 games but is still searching for his first point of the season. One penalty and a minus-six stand as his only notable stat changes. Fasching has been a bit more productive in the minors, with two points in seven games – but he’s still far off from the 14 points he posted in 45 NHL games last year. He moved to the Islanders organization ahead of the 2022-23 season, after spending four years as a top depth forward for the Arizona Coyotes. Fasching proved to be a productive minor leaguer with the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners, netting 106 points across 174 games and serving as the team’s captain in 2021-22. This return will place him back in the competition for bottom-line minutes in New York, pitted against Pierre Engvall and Marc Gatcomb.
Why?
But seriously, pretty impressive he’s found a way to play in almost 200 games this season!