For the first time in a few seasons, Adam Pelech looks unmistakably like Adam Pelech again — and for the New York Islanders, that may be one of the most important developments of the year.
After years of injuries and uneven stretches that led fans to openly question how his eight-year extension was aging, Pelech is authoring a full-scale bounce-back season. The version Islanders fans worried might be gone has returned: calm, physical, positionally elite, and once again trusted to shut games down.
Pelech has always carried top-four responsibility, even while playing through pain or struggling to find rhythm.