Islanders’ Ryan Pulock gets injury update after shoulder surgery

The New York Islanders looked like a playoff team for most of the 2025-26 regular-season, but a brutal stretch of seven regulation losses in their final eight games knocked them out of a postseason slot at the last.

It was a hugely disappointing ending, one that saw Patrick Roy get replaced behind the bench by Pete DeBoer in the waning days of the campaign. That wasn’t enough, as the Isles missed the playoffs for a second straight year.

One player who pulled his weight from start to finish with defenseman Ryan Pulock. He played in a first-pairing role alongside rookie phenom Matthew Schaefer, racking up 27 points and a team-leading 147 blocks, while averaging almost 21 minutes of ice time per game.

It was his highest scoring season since 2019-20. He also posted the lowest goals-against per 60 minutes of ice time on the team’s blue line, a sign of another successful campaign for the Dauphin, Manitoba native.

Pulock missed six games this season, although he battled through a couple of different ailments. As NHL.com’s Stefen Rosner reported earlier this week, the veteran underwent shoulder surgery earlier this month to address those injuries.

“Confirmed that Isles Ryan Pulock elected to have shoulder surgery, one of a few things he was dealing with this past season,” Rosner wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “He’ll be ready for training camp.”

That’s great news for New York fans, as the pairing of Schaefer and Pulock was the team’s best. The 31-year-old has three seasons left on his contract at an AAV of $6.15 million.

He owns a full no-trade clause, so it’s expected he and the soon-to-be Calder Trophy winner will be joined at the hip for the foreseeable future. There’s no reason he won’t be on the top pairing for the duration of the contract, as his play has not declined at all despite his age.

Joining him and Schaefer next season will likely be Alex Romanov, Adam Pelech and Scott Mayfield. Both Tony DeAngelo and Carson Soucy are set to be unrestricted free agents on July 1, and it’ll be interesting to see if general manager Mathieu Darche decides to bring one or both back in 2026-27.

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