New York Islanders at Washington Capitals [Game 54 thread]

The New York Islanders are in D.C. to face the division-leading Capitals as the first part of a traveling back-to-back.

By the looks of it, they’ll be doing it without Kieffer Bellows, the rookie who is off to a nice three-game start to his NHL career. Morning skate lines had Ross Johnston in his place:

I would interpret “heavy” as “Tom Wilson is the type to take a run at a rookie,” but we’ll see how that line looks.

Thankfully, Ryan Pulock is okay after taking a heavy hit late in the loss to the Lightning.

Sounds like Thomas Greiss in net, with Ilya Samsonov in the opposite pipes.

The Capitals, who are doing quite a rotation at the bottom of their blueline, look like this:

Standings Scenario

The Islanders began the day a point behind Columbus for third in the Metro...and also just a point ahead of both Carolina and Philadelphia in the wild card bubble. They do have two games in hand on the latter two and three games in hand on the CBJ.

Omen? Ovechkin Chases 700

I don’t like the looks of this, but I cannot deny I’d have pointed out the same, as Alex Ovechkin enters just two goals short of 700 regular season NHL goals:

Enjoy this one. And then rest up because the Islanders are back in action again tomorrow night at home against the Flyers, which will be on NBC Sports in the U.S.