Lightning at Islanders: Game 16
Time: 7 pm Eastern Time
Location: Barclays Center
Broadcast/Streaming: SUN, MSG+
Opponent SBNation Site: Lighthouse Hockey
Well well well. Look who it is. It’s the Islanders. Again. Third time in two weeks, to be exact. This is the final meeting between the two teams — for whatever reason, the NHL schedule makers decided to lump the games between these two teams in the month of November.
But this is how rivalries begin. Two teams developing a nastiness toward the other, which builds and grows because they don’t stop seeing each other. And two weeks is exactly how long Jonathan Drouin has been out since that Nov. 1 meeting when Calvin de Haan knocked him out. Drouin has been listed day to day ever since without really a clear timetable for return. But now, there’s an outlook. Head coach Jon Cooper said after Saturday’s game that Drouin could return on this road trip.
The Lightning have been playing up and down lately, but they’ve scored against the Islanders. How much have they scored exactly? By a combined score of 10-2 in the first two meetings.
The Islanders are down in the dumps. Head coach Jack Capuano remains firmly planted in the hot seat. It’s so hot that we don’t know why the Isles haven’t gotten rid of him already. This month, they’ve won just one game, against a team they should’ve won against (Canucks). They do have three shootout losses in this time span, so a point’s a point right? Yet when we look at the standings at the time of this writing, the Islanders are four points out of the second wild card spot that’s held by… your Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Islanders have also been playing with a depleted defense corps that took another hit. The latest player to go down is Dennis Seidenberg, the team’s leading defenseman, who was injured Saturday. All reports point to a broken jaw. This is the third regular to go down after Travis Hamonic and Ryan Pulock, who have a broken thumb and foot, respectively.
The Lightning have their own issues on the blueline as Anton Stralman is considered day to day.
If the Lightning are to get off to a winning start on this five-game trip — and the next 12 of 17 games on the road — they’ve got to take the advantage over a depleted Islanders team that’s having their own troubles with winning.
Tampa Bay Lightning
Forward Lines
Vladislav Namestnikov – Steven Stamkos – Nikita Kucherov
Ondrej Palat – Tyler Johnson – Brayden Point
Alex Killorn – Valtteri Filppula – Ryan Callahan
Brian Boyle – Cedric Paquette – J.T. Brown
Defense Pairings
Victor Hedman – Anton Stralman
Jason Garrison – Andrej Sustr
Slater Koekkoek – Braydon Coburn
Goaltenders
Ben Bishop or Andrei Vasilevskiy
New York Islanders
Forward Lines
Josh Bailey – John Tavares – Cal Clutterbuck
Anders Lee – Brock Nelson – Jason Chimera
Anthony Beauvillier – Ryan Strome – Shane Prince
Andrew Ladd – Casey Cizikas – Nikolay Kulemin
Defense Pairings
Nick Leddy – Adam Pelech
Thomas Hickey – Johnny Boychuk
Calvin deHaan – Dennis Seidenberg
Goaltenders
Jaroslav Halak
Thomas Greiss
Line information will be updated in the Game Day Thread.
