The Islanders return to the ice tonight in Pittsburgh as they take on the Penguins in the first leg of back to back games against the team directly ahead of the Isles in the standings. The penguins have a three point lead over the Islanders in the standings and tonight and Saturday will be another test for an Isles team that continues to impress as we are nearly a quarter of the way through the season.

The depth of this Islander team is really shining, through 18 games into this season. They are capable of scoring 5 or 6 goals at any given time. More importantly, John Tavares does not have to hand in a MVP performance in order for the Isles to be successful. While Tavares and Kyle Okposo have struggled finding a winger that clicks at even strength, the team is not missing a beat.

The free agent signings of Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolay Kulemin have provided much needed depth and defensive responsibility amongst the forward group. Furthermore, the emergence of Brock Nelson and Ryan Strome has given the Isles scoring options up and down the lineup. There is still plenty for this team to work on, but through 18 games this year all of the work that Islanders' General Manager Garth Snow did to improve this team is paying off.

Chad Johnson gets the start in net tonight and I assume we will see Jaroslav Halak tomorrow night. Here are the forward lines and defensive pairings for tonight’s game. With the Rangers' game being canceled in Buffalo, the Islanders will be featured on MSG tonight. As always for more on all things hockey please follow me on twitter at @DanDanNoodles78.

Nelson-Tavares-Kulemin
Grabovksi-Nielsen-Okposo
Lee-Strome-Bailey
Martin-Cizikas-Clutterbuck

Leddy-Boychuk
de Haan-Hamonic
Hickey-Visnovsky

Johnson/Halak

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