As it became more and more apparent that, yes, the NHL was going to be able to resume play after pausing its season on March 12 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ryan Pulock reached out to his Islanders’ top-pair defense partner, Adam Pelech, with a simple question.
“When we all heard that there’s a possibility that we were going to come back, I sent him a text just like, ‘Are you going to be ready?’” Pulock said on Tuesday with the Islanders having a chance to clinch their first berth in the Eastern Conference finals since 1993 in that night’s Game 5 of their second-round series at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.