Islanders Gameday News: Robin Lehner is 1st Star

“Trap game,” or what you will, there are two points on the table for the Islanders tonight in Chicago. A nice break for everyone but All-Star-bound Mathew Barzal beckons, but they have to take care of business tonight.

The opponent is in firesale mode and will be looking forward to the break even more than the Islanders. The Isles would do well to remember their few recent losses where they coughed up points they hope don’t later haunt them. Aww, hell, they would just do well to keep doing what they’ve been doing. This 15-of-18 run has been awfully fun.

Leave your FIG Picks for tonight here.

Islanders Reading

• The Isles are aiming for their sixth straight win tonight. [Newsday]
• Robin Lehner was named the league’s First Star of the Week. He’s been kind of good. [Isles]
• His is surely the comeback story of the season. [THN]
• The Islanders’ surge is reflected in the power rankings and the powerless rankers, as Torgo notes you might expect they have “a walrus in net with a pack of polar bears in front of him.” [LHH]
• Prospect Report, Pros-pect Re-port: Sorokin nabs a-nother shutout {check, check, check} [Isles]
• Travis and Jonathan launched a cool and very useful project they’ve been collaborating on: NHL Names gives you the pronunciation of particularly tricky players on each NHL team. With audio examples from the play-by-play announcers. Check it out, leave feedback, and give ‘em a shout. [NHL Names]
• The Sound Tigers slump continued with an afternoon loss to Hershey. Guys looking ahead to the break too much, perhaps? [CT Post | Soundin’ Off]
• This first-place squad has the fans awfully giddy. [Drive 4 Five]
• The latest explanation from Toronto for the Islanders’ continued good run is that John Tavares’ departure forced them to become A TEAM. Heh. It notes the Isles needed changes even before Tavares left...kind of ignoring that those changes had already happened. [Sun]

Elsewhere

Last night’s NHL scores include a bunch of Western games, plus the Panthers beating the Sharks.

• Are you sitting down? (Or as Copper N Blue put it: “No, I don’t know why.”) Mikko Koskinen got a three-year extension from the Oilers worth $4.5 million per year. [NHL | C&B]
• But...at least they waived Ryan Spooner and Ty Rattie? [C&B]
• “I’ve never seen the fans this apathetic and fatalist.” [TSN Edmonton radio]
• Mid-term 2019 draft prospect rankings from Central Scouting. [NHL]
• Sounds like the Blackhawks will no longer force Jeremy Colliton to have Bowman buddy Barry Smith on his bench staff. [SCH]
• Peter Laviolette got his 600th NHL regular season win. Hey, I remember him when... [NHL]