Josh Bailey was a Playmaking Machine in the Playoffs
Josh Bailey has had a very interesting Islanders career so far. Tons of ups and downs to this point including a 71 point season in 2017-18, and an own goal into an empty net last season. The longest-tenured Islander still on the team had a very impressive playoff this year, living up to his contract.
The success of the Isles’ second line in the playoffs all started off the stick of Josh Bailey. His assists were propelling the offense by continuously feeding line-mates Brock Nelson and Anthony Beauvillier, who would score most of the goals.
Josh Bailey had an incredible 18 assists during the Islanders’ deep playoff run. That number was good for 4th place in assists during the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Only Nikita Kucherov, Miro Heiskanien and Brayden Point had more assists in the playoffs. Bailey was the only player out of the top 5 in assists to not play in the Stanley Cup Final.
Josh Bailey only docked 2 goals in the playoffs, both in the first round series against the Washington Capitals. One was a shorthanded game-winner in Game 1 and the other was an empty-netter to seal the series in Game 5. This put him at 20 points total in the playoffs, which was 8th on the list for playoff point totals.
The Islanders would not have gone to the Eastern Conference Final without Josh Bailey. He is not a flashy player, and sometimes he becomes unnoticeable on the ice, but he always comes up big in the playoffs. He is famously known for his overtime-winning goal against the Penguins in the playoffs last year.
In February of Josh’s career year in 2017-18, he was rewarded with a 6 year contract extension with an annual value of $5 million. If this contract lasts in full with the Islanders, and it seems it will, Bailey will have been a New York Islander for 15 seasons at that point in the future. That is a remarkable amount of time to spend on one team, and a long career too. He is 31 years of age so we may be approaching the tail end of his career.
Love him or hate him, Josh Bailey has been an interesting Islander. He went off these playoffs and was ranked with some of the league’s biggest stars on stat rankings. Bailey was sneakily good, as his performance flew under the radar. Isles fans are eager to see if he keeps up this great play next season. Hopefully they can be in the stands chanting “Hey Josh Bailey” sooner rather than later.
