Tavares Out (tampa)

UPDATED:

The New York Islanders will be without captain John Tavares for a second straight game when they host the Buffalo Sabres at Barclays Center on Sunday because of flu-like symptoms.

Tavares, who leads the Islanders with 11 points (five goals, six assists) in 10 games, missed New York's 3-2 shootout loss at the New Jersey Devils on Saturday.

"He's not feeling too well," Islanders coach Jack Capuano said of Tavares. "It's gonna be a day-by-day thing with him. I told him we'll converse again [Monday] morning."

The Islanders played without goaltender Jaroslav Halak and forward Ryan Strome on Thursday (a 3-2 overtime loss against the Carolina Hurricanes) because of illnesses. Capuano is hopeful it won't make its way around the dressing room.

"You never know how it goes," Capuano said. "But other guys are feeling pretty well right now and hopefully that will continue for us. But obviously not having your captain … I think guys will rally and play hard."

The Sabres are trying to win back-to-back games for the first time this season. This is their first trip to Barclays Center.

"We've put ourselves in situations a lot to have wins and not closed out games, shot ourselves in the foot a little bit in some aspects," Buffalo coach Dan Bylsma said. "I think we've done a pretty good job of trying to clean those things up. I think that's more important than trying to [win] back-to-back. Some of those small, key areas of the game, the [start] of periods, the end of periods, faceoff scenarios, we have to be better at to win hockey games, to keep our leads, to close out hockey games. That's where our focus needs to be."

Thanks, Islanders.com

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Will JT headline Barclays Center won't he?

NY Islanders captain John Tavares missed Saturday's game against the New Jersey Devils. He was scratched due to an unknown illness. His head coach Jack Capuano sent JT home to be re-evaluated.

The Isles lost 3-2 in Newark sans JT.

It is unknown as to whether Tavares can play against the Buffalo Sabres tonight.

JT has 11 points (5G, 6A) in his 10 games played this season.

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The Buffalo Sabres best beware of the red hot NY Islanders special teams.

The NYI power play scored for a fifth-consecutive game Saturday afternoon in Newark.

Their PKers went 3-for-3, improving to 26-for-26 in their past eight games.

The Islanders power play (28.6%) and penalty kill (92.3%) are top-two in the NHL.

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The Islanders went 2-0-1 versus the Sabres last season.

Jaroslav Halak had a 2-0-0 record against Buffalo last year.

Will Halak face Linus Ullmark tonight?

We shall wait and see.

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Here are Saturday's Islanders lines, sans Tavares.

Bailey-Nielsen-Okposo Kulemin-Grabovski-Bernier Lee-Nelson-Strome Martin-Cizikas-Clutterbuck

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________________________________________________________________________

Adversity rears it's head at the most inopportune times.

The Montreal Canadiens have been crushing it this season. They have been a most formidable foe largely due to the ubiquity and dominance of Carey Price.

Price is 7-2 with a 2.01 GAA this season.

Price earned the Hart Trophy last season as the NHL's regular-season MVP. He also won the Vezina Trophy in a landslide winner as the NHL's most prolific goalie.

The Habs are going to have to learn to win without Price as he will be out of the starting lineup for at least one week with a lower-body injury.

Habs head coach Mike Therrien said Sunday that Price suffered the lower body injury in Montreal's 4-3 loss at Edmonton on Thursday.

Tonight, the Canadiens drop the puck on a four game homestand versus Winnipeg.

Rookie Mike Condon makes second consecutive start. Dustin Tokarski was recalled from St. John's of the AHL to support Condon for the next week.

Condon is 3-0 with a 1.67 GAA and a .944 save percentage.

The Habs give Condon solid goal support when he plays this season. They scored seven goals for him in Buffalo recently and a dropped a six spot Calgary on Friday night.

***

Did you know that the Tampa Lightning have never drafted and developed their own number one goalie?

True story.

That streak will come to an end when Andrei Vasilevskiy (1st round 2012) returns to the Tampa starting lineup after a lengthy time away from the team.

The Bolts recalled Vasilevskiy and forward Tye McGinn this morning.

The Bolts are built to make another long playoff run as they had last spring.

Jon Cooper is going to need two horses pulling his wagon, not one, in terms of his goaltending this season.

It's very likely that the big Russian keeper will make his season debut tonight when the Lightning visit the Carolina Hurricanes.

Vasilevskiy has been sidelined the past two months as he is recovering from the surgical procedure that he underwent to remove blood clots from his collarbone/neck region.

The Bolts have now lost four games in a row and they now need Vasilevskiy to come out of the bullpen to spell their starting goalie Ben Bishop.

Bishop has played a ton of hockey for the Bolts the past two seasons and his body is beginning to show signs of wear and tear. The Bolts coaching staff and management want to park Bishop on a more consistent basis so that when playoff times comes he is healthy, invigorated, and fully engaged mentally in the processes of grinding our 16 wins in order to capture Lord Stanley's Cup.

Bishop, who will be 29 in November, is 5-5-1 with a 2.37 GAA and .916 save percentage this season. He has made 308 saves while allowing 26 goals against.

With 70 games remaining in the Tampa season, Vasilevskiy needs to play in order to preserve the tread pattern on Bishop's aging all season radial tires. Amazingly, Bishop has competed in 150 combined games the past two NHL seasons. In that time period, he has seen more rubber than the Talladega 500 and Daytona 500 combined.

Jon Cooper told the Tampa Times that he is committed to a “1/1A… goaltending tandem for the remainder of the regular season, provided Vasilevskiy remains healthy.

"We can't sit here and say that “Bish… is going to get 60 more games and Vasilevskiy 10," Cooper said. "The whole point of this is to have a 1-2 tandem, and in a perfect world, a No. 1 and 1A tandem. And Vasy needs games. He's an NHL-caliber goaltender, and we think he's going to be a really, really good one, but he needs games to play."

Vasilevskiy started 16 games in his rookie season in 2014-15 going 7-5-1, with a respectable 2.36 GAA.

NHL scouts and personnel evaluators will tell you unequivocally that Vasilevskiy is ready for prime time, and not just as a backup. Many scouts feel that Vasilevskiy is ready now to be Tampa's #1 keeper.

Bishop has ben under siege in the first three weeks of the new season starting 11 of the first 12 games. Bishop lost Saturday to Boston. Young rock star Kristers Gudlevskis, he of Team Latvia Olympic fame, gave Bishop the night off on October 24 in Chicago.

Bishop hasn't looked himself in many games this season and he recently confided that he had been grinding it out and playing through a confidential injury. Bishop tore his groin muscle last spring during the Stanley Cup Finals.

"Bish has played a lot in the last two years, so there's nothing wrong with evening this out a little bit and giving Bishop a rest," Cooper said. "He's proven over time he can handle the load, as you just saw in the playoffs and at the start of the year. But you don't want to put him in a position to where he's going to wear down."

Bolts GM Steve Yzerman enters tonight's game action in Raleigh with just $1.2 million in available salary cap space. He he no margin for error in terms of a rainy day fund to assist him is trading for an emergency D or forward in the event of an injury to one of his key skaters.

On Saturday night, Cooper made his most expensive D-man, Matt Carle, a healthy scratch. Carle's name has been prevalent in NHL trade rumors for the past two weeks. Carle is earning $5.5 million for the next three seasons. He is 31.

Bishop's name has also been buzzing through the NHL trade rumors. Many NHL teams, like the Buffalo Sabres, are attempting to fortify their starting goaltending.

In Tampa, Bishop is presently a $5.95 million salary cap hit for this and next season.

Yzerman and the agents for Steven Stamkos have been stealth-like in the contract negotiations. Stamkos is in a contract year and he is going to be a top five NHL wage earner once his contract extension if completed in Tampa. Naturally, Yzerman needs to create $10 million in salary cap space for next season which would be the first year of the eight year contract extension that Stamkos will be signing to remain the captain of the Bolts.

Trading Bishop and Carle this season will create $11.45 million in desperately needed salary cap space for Yzerman to go buy Stamkos a gaudy, blingified, diamond encrusted new wedding band.

Yzerman and Cooper have drafted and developed some A+ defense prospects in AHL Syracuse in youngsters Andrej Sustr, Nikita Nestorov, and Slater Koekoek. Losing Carle will not be a shock to the Bolt's D corps. Some would argue that trading Carle will be addition by subtraction.

Some may also be saying the say thing about trading Bishop.

Vasilevskiy is in year two of his entry level deal which pays him $925,000 this and next season.

**

If Yzerman is okay with eating 40%-50% of Bishop's $5.95 AAV this season, I can see him trading the veteran keeper. Perhaps Buffalo's Tim Murray will be keen on such a deal because his starter Robin Lehner won't return from his high ankle sprain until Christmas time and then again there is no guarantee that he will be active to rush right back to his crease once he is cleared to play. High ankle sprains are worse than bone breaks and require massive amount of rest and recovery. That said, Lehner will need to work on his conditioning once he is cleared to play. He was in the midst of getting his body back in order before the ankle injury occurred on opening night. Lehner suffered a concussion on February 14 and was not allowed to skate or partake in on ice scrimmages or drills until he was cleared by his neurologist in early August.

Chad Johnson has shown me that he is at best a backup keeper who is capable of starting 2-4 games in a row. Johnson has allowed a few greasy, unfortunate goals this season and has cost the Sabres the opportunity to win in close games. The Sabres are a far better and more competitor team than their 4-7 record indicates.

It's incumbent upon Murray to find a sure thing, veteran goalie who can win his team some games in the early stages of the season.

The Eastern Conference is wide open right now and besides Montreal, there are no dominant teams. Murray doesn't have the same defeatist attitude like tens of thousands of Sabres fans do who say: "This isn't a playoff year for the Sabres".

It's not?

Says who?

I vehemently disagree and will argue the point all day long.

The Sabres ARE a playoff team if only they can keep the puck out of their own net and continue to fill enemy nets with biscuits like they did to Philly on Friday night.

Recent histiry suggests that the Sabres have just as good a chance of making the playoffs this season as any other team in the Leastern Conference.

Where are Boston? Tampa? NY Rangers? New Jersey? Detroit? Ottawa? Washington? Florida? NY Islanders? Carolina? Florida?

Not exactly Murderers Row, eh?

Did Colorado go from the outhouse to the penthouse two years ago? Didn't Calgary go from 27th overall two seasons ago to the playoffs last season?

Never say never, my friends.

The Buffalo Sabres ARE a playoff team this season if and only if their players believe that they are.

Tim Murray wants to preview rookie Linus Ullmark (163rd pick overall, 2012) to see what he has to offer. The kid was a yard sale versus New Jersey in his NHL debut, however, nearly pitched a shutout against Philly on Friday night.

Who is Linus Ullmark? If I am Dan Bylsma, I give him the start tonight in Hipster Heaven Brooklyn.

What if Ullmark fails? What if Johnson cannot correct his propensity to litter his crease with teh long rebounds that hop off his gear oin a regular basis? What if Lehner isn't able to play in NHL games until January?

What then?

Bishop sure would be a nice inurance policy to have in hand to win the winnable games now and set up the Sabres for a playoff run this spring.

Murray could trade for Bishop, ride home for a few months, then trade him to a contender at the NHL trade deadline.

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