Islanders Gameday News: Barzal magic, Pulock improvement, Stars loom

The Islanders are home again tonight to face the Stars, who took a shootout win at the Garden a couple of nights ago. Leave your First Islanders Goal picks in this thread.

Islanders Reads

• A Spizzwolf joint: For the glorious love of all that is Mathew Barzal, video game character. [LHH]
• The coaching staff likes the direction Ryan Pulock’s game is headed. An interesting insight into why it’s taken them a while, from Weight: “he’s strong, a good skater, but his technique was poor. He’s been working on it and now it’s second nature for him. That’s a credit to (assistant coach) Luke (Richardson), Cro (associate coach Greg Cronin) and Ryan.” [Newsday]
• Calvin de Haan enjoyed the Isles toy drive trip, and is really looking forward to some home cooking ‘round Christmas. [NHLPA]
• Shane Prince is working on getting back to game shape during his conditioning assignment in Bridgeport. [CT Post]
• The Sound Tigers are off today, but injury updates abound. [Soundin’ Off]
• Ross Johnson gets a one-game suspension for actions against Springfield, meaning he’ll miss the rematch. [Soundin’ Off]
• Blueliners Ben Mirageas and David Quenneville headline this week's prospect report. [Isles]
• The Islanders have only scored first 11 times this season, but at least they’ve won all 11 of those. [Isles]
• Forgot to highlight this yesterday, but here are the latest power rankings (before the win over the Caps). [LHH]
• This year, with that Isles offense, why not us? The goaltending. [THN]

Brian Compton of NHL.com mused that Cody Ceci of the firesale-any-day-now Senators might be a good add for the Isles. Lots of reasons we oppose such a notion, including:

Elsewhere

Last night’s scores include the Capitals, Devils and Flyers all winning in regulation, though the Blue Jackets were absolutely torched by Edmonton.

That led to a Tortorella classic:

• Tonight’s opponent has struggled on the road. Is it a failure to adjust? [Defending Big D]
• Corey Perry had an ugly-looking impact to his knee. The Ducks declare him out “week to week.” [OC Register]
• Sad news as former NHLer Zarley Zalapski is dead at age 49. [NHL | TSN]
• Longtime Flames writer Kent Wilson goes all Fire Joe Morgan on a ridiculous column that blames the city for not building the team an arena, essentially. [Athletic]
• If Seattle’s coming (and who knows, maybe Houston down the line?), here’s some fun with division realignments in a 32-, 33- or 34-team league. [Five For Howling]
• And how about a tournament to name the future Seattle team? [Sonics Rising]
• Let’s speculate on Erik Karlsson and other rumors. [TSN Insider Trading]