Kielly excited to return
Islanders centre playing tonight in Saint John
Kameron Kielly is ready to go.
The 19-year-old Charlottetown Islanders centre will play his first game tonight in Saint John, N.B., since being injured Nov. 14 against the Acadie-Bathurst Titan.
“(We’re) coming down the homestretch now and I couldn’t be happier to be back in the lineup,” Kielly said Thursday.
On Nov. 14, Kielly went to the bench with what appeared to be an arm or hand injury. The team would only call it an upper-body injury, but it required surgery.
The Islanders went 2-9 from when Kielly was hurt to the Christmas break.
“It wasn’t fun, especially when we went through that rough patch,” said Kielly. “It sucks watching. You don’t realize how bad it is until you really do it.”
It is the longest Kielly has missed during a season since he began playing the sport. The Charlottetown native said the mental side was hard to deal with, but he leaned on others who had gone through it.
Former Islanders defenceman Ryan Graves, who missed the first part of last season with the Quebec Remparts following shoulder surgery, told Kielly to work hard in the gym and come back in better shape when he was able to get back on the ice.
There were some whispers Kielly might not be able to return to the team this season, but the reliable 200-foot player remained positive.
“I believed in what we were doing here with the rehab and the work we put in every day,” he said.
Centre Filip Chlapik will play his first game with the Islanders in about a month tonight after playing in the world junior tournament in Finland.
“I think the lineup is slowly starting to come together with the roster we probably