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Isles/Hurricanes LET'S GO!!!

October 10, 2014, 11:17 AM ET [302 Comments]
Dan Petriw
New York Islanders Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
It is finally Friday. All the build-up, all the excitement, all the anticipation leads up to tonight’s opening face-off as the Islanders are in Raleigh to take on the Hurricanes. The Hurricanes will be without Jordan Staal and Jeff Skinner as both are out with injuries. Cam Ward will be in net against the Islanders and his record against the Isles is a sparkling 17-3-3 over the course of his career. Sorry, I wasn’t trying to derail the party train but the Islanders record against the Hurricanes has been, frankly, miserable. With that being said, this year has to be different. The Islanders’ lineup is certainly revamped and we will have to see how this team gels in it's first couple of games. If you look around the league, it always seems like offense is ahead of the defense early in the season. Here are the projected lines and defensive pairings for the islanders.

Conacher-Tavares-Okposo
Grabovski-Nelson-Strome
Bailey-Nielsen-Kulemin
Martin-Cizikas-Clutterbuck

Hickey-Hamonic
Leddy-Boychuk
Strait-Reinhart

Halak-Johnson

The team has not announced the starting goalie yet but one has to assume it will be Jaroslav Halak. Griffin Reinhart is set to make his NHL debut tonight and it will be interesting to see how Reinhart handles the nerves in his debut. It will also be interesting to see how the newest pair of blueliners, Nick Leddy and Johnny Boychuk, adapt to their new surroundings.

There is plenty to watch up front, as this offense has the potential to be good. I’m looking forward to seeing how Cory Conacher looks playing with John Tavares and Kyle Okposo. I’m expecting Conacher to be an annoying pest to play against and this might create some space and time for Tavares and Okposo. The play of the second and third lines is critical for providing some much needed depth. I’m excited to see how the second line looks as the speed and creativity of Grabovski and Strome should really compliment the all-around game of Brock Nelson. The third line has the potential to offer solid depth and be extremely responsible, defensively. Finally the fourth line must be great in their own end and needs to be a pain in the butt to play against.

In injury news, it has been confirmed that Michael Grabner will be out 4 to 6 weeks after recovering from sports hernia surgery. I would expect since Grabner missed most of camp he would need some more time to get in shape and get his legs back. This will give some of the bottom six players some time to prove that they should stick in this lineup.

This offseason turned from one of hope into one of joy. There are now tangible expectations for this team. It is time for this organization to take the next step and erase years of losing. The foundation is in place, the framework is finally up, it is now time to finish building the house and win some hockey games on a consistent basis. While there is a buzz about spring time hockey, you can’t get to the playoffs by laying eggs in October and November. This is why the Isles need to get out of the gate, flying. They can do so tonight by securing two points in Carolina. As always, for more on all things hockey please follow me on twitter at @DanDanNoodles78.
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