Islanders News: Gospel according to Luke; Barzal begins Memorial Cup; de Haan vs Sorokin at Worlds

Before tonight’s Game 5 between the Ducks and the now seriously depleted (more on that later) Predators, there are two others relevant games for Islanders fans to pay attention to.

The first is at 9:15 this morning, when Calvin de Haan and Team Canada take on Ilya Sorokin and Team Russia in the semi finals at the IIHF World Championships. You can watch all of remaining Worlds games in the US via NBCSports.com, which will stream them live. Basically, one Islander will be present in both of Sunday’s medal games, bronze in the morning, gold in the afternoon.

And on Saturday afternoon, Mathew Barzal plays in Seattle’s first Memorial Cup game, facing Dylan Strome and the Erie Otters. The game is at 3:15 and Americans can pay to watch it via the tournament’s website. Canadians can just turn on TSN. The Thunderbirds also play on Sunday night versus host Windsor.

So there you go. Meanwhile...

Islanders links

• Programming Note: Garik will be hosting a live podcast event on Tuesday night at 8 pm with Alex Novet (aka @GhostofNyles on Twitter) focusing on the rookie season of Anthony Beauvillier. Keep an eye out for more details and be sure to tune in. [FanPost]
• Everybody Loves Luke: Four questions with the new assistant coach on Islanders.com. He also did a bunch of radio hits on Friday, and here’s his one on Sirius XM NHL with Scott Laughlin and Patrick O’Sullivan. [Sound Cloud]
• Barzal is just the latest Islander to find himself in the Memorial Cup spotlight. And yes, missing from this list is Griffin Reinhart, who won the cup while he was still Islanders property. Not to mention the legendary Kirill Kabanov. [Islanders.com]
• A slideshow walk down memory lane about the Islanders’ adventures in expansion drafts. [Eyes on Isles]
• Remember defenseman Thomas Pock? Well, two things: A. his name is spelled “Poeck” now and B. he was just named coach of the NWHL’s Boston Pride. [Ice Garden]
• No, you haven’t missed anything. The Belmont project RFP still has not been issued and Newsday is wondering what the hold up is. All we’ve had this whole time are a few words from the commissioner and lots of rumors.

Around the NHL

• The Penguins made a goalie switch, but scoring a pair of goals in about three minutes was the difference in their Game 4 win over Ottawa. [Pensburgh]
• As for tonight’s game, Ryan Johansen will miss the next 2-3 months with a thigh injury which is absolutely devastating for the Predators’ Cup dreams. Just an awful turn of events. [OTF | SBN on what Nashville can do in the short term]
• Randy Carlyle is a good coach again. At least until he isn’t. [Puck Daddy]
• Here’s the Stanley Cup finals schedule. The series starts a week from this coming Monday.