BUFFALO — In a way, when Roger Hunt has caught different parts of the Islanders’ 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. “I’m just watching Cal 2.0 in the NHL,” he said. The same defining points of Ritchie’s skill set — from the underrated shot to the slip plays and everything else in between — have kept appearing in Islanders games.
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.
But that has changed. A four-game point streak in January marked a career-high. A five-game run — with six points across that stretch — after recording a goal during Tuesday’s 4-3 loss to the Sabres reset it, and Ritchie’s 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.
“He’s doing things up there, to be honest with you, he did at junior,” Hunt told The Post before the Islanders faced the Sabres at KeyBank Center on Tuesday, “and it’s incredible to think that he can translate that skill set up there to the best players in the world.”
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’d already been traded. But he was prepared for that next level of hockey, Hunt said. Ritchie knew that he couldn’t 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.