The Ottawa Senators could get some good news on the injury front as they host the streaking New York Islanders on Saturday night.
Both Andrew Hammond and Mika Zibanejad took the optional skate on Friday, and could be dressed tonight. While Hammond, if he is ready, will still likely back up, it could mean he might be able to start on Sunday at MSG as the Senators play back to back and Craig Anderson has faced a lot of rubber since Hammond went down.
Zibanejad will be a welcome return to take some of the load off of Kyle Turris, who played a season high 25:58 in Thursday's win over Chicago. The Senators must expect Zibanejad to be ready as they send Colin Greening down. As I said yesterday it didn't make much sense to have Greening here if they couldn't trust him to play more than the 4 minutes he did play even though the Senators were already a forward down.
However, even if Zibanejad returns, they would still have been a forward short, which is why they have recalled big winger David Dziurzynski to fill out the forward ranks. DD has 5 goals and 11 points so far in Binghamton, but he won't be asked to fill a scoring role and will be on the fourth line, joining what has been a pretty effective line of late. It will be Dziurzynski's second stint in Ottawa, following a 12 game audition in 2012-13 during which he scored 2 goals but is perhaps best remembered for being on the wrong end of a scary knockout by Leafs enforcer Fraser McLaren.
The Islanders come in riding a 4 game winning streak, but come in having played extra time in Friday night's shootout win over St. Louis and traveling for tonight's game.
Ryan Strome received a wake-up call last month when he was sent to the AHL following a start that saw him score just a goal and four assists in his first 12 games. the call was answered, and in the 5 games since he was recalled he has 2 goals and 3 assists.
Jaroslav Halak and Thomas Greiss have shared the goaltending duties, with Greiss starting 3 of the last 4 games. Griess beat the Blues on Friday, so it will likely be Halak who gets the call against the Sens. He is coming off a 2-1 shootout win where he stopped 33 Rangers shots on Wednesday night. He has been decidedly average in his career against Ottawa, with a 5-6-2 record, 2.58GAA and .916 SP.
The Islanders are in the final game of 3 in 4 nights, the first two of which were decided in a shootout so the Senators might be able to take advantage of some tired legs and get out to an early start, knowing they will be in the Islanders' situation tomorrow night.