The Islanders are in the twin cities tonight as they take on the Minnesota Wild. It will be a homecoming for Kyle Okposo, Brock Nelson, Nick Leddy and Anders Lee who are all Minnesota natives. Due to injuries, the lineup is a bit of a mess tonight but defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky does return after a stint on injured reserves.
Jaroslav Halak will be looking to start a new winning streak after his eleven game one was snapped in the Isles meltdown Saturday against the Blues. The return of Visnovsky will help as he will replace Matt Donovan in the lineup. Try as we may, Brian Strait still finds a way to get into a NHL starting lineup. I don’t think there is a world of difference between Brian Strait and Matt Donovan, but given the choice I would play Donovan and sit Strait.
Casey Cizikas did not make the trip to Minnesota and he was placed on injured reserve retroactive to December 6th. It does not appear that he will miss significant time. With Cizikas out, Ryan Strome will slide down and center the fourth line but I do expect Strome will see powerplay time and could be killing penalties as well.
The Isles as really banged up right now, especially on their blueline and the upcoming schedule does them no favors but the team still needs to rack up some points. Nobody expects another stretch like the month of November but the Islanders must find a way to avoid any prolonged losing streaks. Here are the forward lines for tonight’s game against the Wild. As always for more on all things hockey please follow me on twitter at @DanDanNoodles78.
Kulemin-Tavares-Okposo Grabovski-Nielsen-Bailey Lee-Nelson-Grabner Martin-Strome-Clutterbuck