Islanders Gameday News: Rematch with Flyers; Russo Eligibility Troubles

The New York Islanders pursue revenge against the Philadelphia Flyers this afternoon, a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday matinee that comes with another divisional game, against the Rangers at Madison Square Garden, looming tomorrow.

• With back-to-backs this afternoon and tomorrow night, expect Anders Nilsson to get one of the starts in goal.
• In advance of the outdoor game, "NHL Revealed" captured some Cappy pre-game talk that is sure to entertain.
• Isles prospect Robbie Russo of Notre Dame has been ruled ineligible for this semester: "He's trying to do some things to get a grade changed," Jackson said. Russo's status should be known before next weekend's home series with Northeastern.
• Newsday on the emergency pair of Calvin de Haan and Matt Donovan: "Those two were quite good against the Lightning and its top line of Marty St. Louis, Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat. They were not as good against Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek and Michael Raffl, though de Haan and Donovan were not alone in their struggles."
• The Sound Tigers finally had an easy one, a 5-1 romp over last-place Hartford. Fornabaio has more.
• More looks at the Steve Mason contract extension: Broad Street Hockey | Flyers Faithful

Newsday's piece about the Josh Bailey struggles the other day also had John Tavares quotes on Ryan Strome:

"He knows he did some good things here, but he also knows he didn't produce to the level where he made that decision [to send him down] a difficult one," Tavares said. "We talked a lot while he was here. I think he'd admit there were times he was a little slow to react to plays, and that's normal. Those are things that I went through when I first got here."

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