The team hopes to have an NHL affiliation in place well before it can sign free agents and that could happen as soon as three weeks from now, according to Rucker. Signs point to the Railers having a tentative agreement in place with the New York Islanders, whose AHL affiliate is a relatively short drive away in Bridgeport.
"We have no comment," Rucker said, "other than to say that the Railers are interested in doing business with people who want to do business with us and nothing has been signed yet."
The Islanders have shown substantial interest, going as far as sending a contingent of executives from their player development department up to Worcester to talk with Railers officials and look at the DCU Center last autumn.
The Islanders are affiliated with Missouri of the ECHL, but that's not a good geographical mix and Missouri has also gotten some St. Louis Blues prospects this year. However, the Islanders just fired head coach Jack Capuano and the franchise could be on the verge of a reorganization.
NYIFC Comments:
This is a new franchise that wants to get up and running quickly, the Blues being a part of the Missouri Mavericks affiliation with Islanders is only natural for them, the Islanders agreement expires there at the end of this season.
This would remove any chance of the Islanders putting an ECHL team in Nassau Coliseum or Webster Bank Arena doing Prokhorov-Ratner no favors with Ratner's agreement to supply an AHL team.