Hounding report: New York Islanders

The schedule hasn't allowed too many opportunities to test the theory that day-before-gameday hounding is the best time to snag autographs from visiting NHL teams. Last Wednesday, with the New York Islanders in Hockey Bay, afforded one of those opportunities. So, with Colin on his spring break, we gave it a try.

Though we didn't snag too many of the big names -- with John Tavares out for the season with a knee injury and Josh Bailey and Kyle Okposo winning at a game of hide-and-seek -- we still came home with 33 autographs, a respectable number, even for a tag-team effort.

All told, our spring break efforts, including the Ottawa Senators,  netted us another 65 autographs for the collection. Within them, too, we added the 500th autograph of the 2013-14 hockey-hounding campaign.

Signing the pucks, shown above, were Islanders' recent No. 1 picks Calvin de Haan, left, and Ryan Strome.

Highlights included getting four players and a coach to sign four cards each:

Cal Clutterbuck, who signed the 500th autograph (second from right) of the campaign;

Travis Hamonic;

Matt Martin;

Frans Nielsen; and

Doug Weight.

We added specialty cards, shown below, from de Haan, from left, Thomas Hickey and Strome:

Also signing cards, shown below, were Colin McDonald and Evgeni Nabokov:

We also employed a trio of cheapskates cards, shown below, signed by Brock Nelson, from top, Anders Nilsson and Strome.