Islanders vs. Blue Jackets: Opening night lines, game thread

Greetings, Islanders fans! Tonight is the first day of the rest of your life spent mixing misplaced hope and jaded cynicism in one toxic stew we call sports fandom.

Our game threads are places to watch the game, react to events, dabble in a bit of (often gallows) humor, and generally not try to piss each other off.

If you could treat it as a forum or chat room to have some collective fun — that’s the point of sports, after all, beyond total victory — rather than a place to Prove Again I Am Correct In My Analysis and The Rest Of You (You Know Who You Are) Are Stupid, that would be appreciated.

Also, please welcome new LHH writer Skyler Gilbert when he does your post-game recap tonight.

Game Details

Islanders (0-0-0) @ Blue Jackets (0-0-0)
7 p.m. EDT | [insurance or geography or something] Arena
Opposition site: The Cannon

Lineups

As teased this morning, Joshua Ho-Sang sits along with Ryan Pulock and Scott Mayfield.

Way more from Ho-Sang and Doug Weight on the decision in this Newsday piece.

Anders Lee - John Tavares - Jordan Eberle
Andrew Ladd - Mathew Barzal - Josh Bailey
Anthony Beauvillier - Brock Nelson - Jason Chimera
Nikolai Kulemin - Casey Cizikas - Cal Clutterbuck

Nick Leddy - Johnny Boychuk
Calvin de Haan - Dennis Seidenberg
Thomas Hickey - Adam Pelech

Thomas Greiss (starter)
Jaroslav Halak

First Islanders Goal picks can be logged here before 7 p.m.

Let’s go Islanders!