{"id":534070,"date":"2026-04-01T04:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/534070\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T04:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:37:15","slug":"cal-ritchies-islanders-heater-is-no-surprise-to-his-old-ohl-gm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/534070\/","title":{"rendered":"Cal Ritchie’s Islanders heater is no surprise to his old OHL GM"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUFFALO \u2014 In a way, when Roger Hunt has caught different parts of the Islanders\u2019 season, he felt as if he watched the same version of Cal Ritchie that the Oshawa Generals vice president and general manager did in the OHL. \u201cI\u2019m just watching Cal 2.0 in the NHL,\u201d he said. The same defining points of Ritchie\u2019s skill set<\/a> \u2014 from the underrated shot to the slip plays and everything else in between \u2014 have kept appearing in Islanders games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This was the same potential the Islanders envisioned when they acquired him ahead of the trade deadline last season in the Brock Nelson deal, but the type of role Ritche could construct in the present remained a bit of an unknown entering the campaign. He started the year injured. Then in Bridgeport. Then with the Islanders, without much production to show for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that has changed. A four-game point streak in January marked a career-high. A five-game run \u2014 with six points across that stretch \u2014 after recording a goal during Tuesday\u2019s 4-3 loss to the Sabres<\/a> reset it, and Ritchie\u2019s recent play has allowed him to impress both Hunt and Islanders head coach Patrick Roy, both the past and the present of his hockey career, as he contributes to an Islanders team fighting for a playoff berth.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s doing things up there, to be honest with you, he did at junior,\u201d Hunt told The Post before the Islanders faced the Sabres at KeyBank Center on Tuesday, \u201cand it\u2019s incredible to think that he can translate that skill set up there to the best players in the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Ritchie, this serves as the first stretch run of his NHL career. The games with the highest of stakes. He appeared in seven games for the Avalanche in October 2024 before getting loaned back to Oshawa, and by the time Ritchie played in his next NHL game, he\u2019d already been traded. But he was prepared for that next level of hockey, Hunt said. Ritchie knew that he couldn\u2019t make his mark in the NHL on goal scoring alone, so he worked on adding defensive elements to his game while with the Generals, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO \u2014 In a way, when Roger Hunt has caught different parts of the Islanders\u2019 season, he felt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5100],"tags":[1107,229,5133,5,159,4,2905,1108,43,336],"class_list":{"0":"post-534070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-sabres","8":"tag-buffalo","9":"tag-buffalo-sabres","10":"tag-buffalosabres","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-new-york-islanders","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-patrick-roy","15":"tag-sabres","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-sports-plus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116327602215121012","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}