New York Islanders at St. Louis Blues [Game #63 thread]

The New York Islanders are in a St. Louis tonight for a quick trip before returning home for a Butch Goring Afternoon on Saturday.

Based on reports from the morning skate, there was good news: Michael Dal Colle looked to be taking a regular turn on the new line with Josh Bailey and Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and Andy Greene, though skating as an extra, was still skating. Both are good signs as they each left Tuesday night’s game with injuries.

However, Andrew Gross later noted that Matt Martin stayed on with the extras, while Ross Johnston headed off with the regulars. So possible change to that fourth-line combo there.

The expected starting goalies are Jordan Binnington and Thomas Greiss.

The Blues had a potential seven-defensemen setup at their morning skate, though that might just be because forward Sammy Blais is a gametime decision. Like Barry Trotz with the Islanders, Craig Berube likes to have four lines to churn out for the Blues.

The Stanley Cup champions recently went through an unbelievable stretch of 11 consecutive games allowing three or more goals, which would have been a great time for the Islanders to catch them.

Instead, the Blues recently righted the ship, giving up two goals over a four-game stretch as part of a current five-game win streak. Their last game was a crazy 6-5 affair with the Blackhawks, though that featured three power play goals conceded on just four Chicago opportunities.

Trending: Will there be penalties?

The Blues have taken a lot of penalties lately — or been called for a lot, as there have been some games where the officiating was truly befuddling — but the Islanders are still receiving the lowest number of power plays in the league by far, and at a historic level, so we’ll see which way the officials go tonight.

Divert Your Eyes

It’s going to be a “retro” night in St. Louis, so they will wear their splash-of-red mid ‘90s jerseys that came about around the same time as the wavy seafaring Islanders fisherman. Prepare your eyes accordingly.

By the way: Those styles, and the original Mighty Ducks of Anaheim uniforms, developed in part because of “advances” that allowed for angles and funky colors and such in jersey production. You might not know that red only existed — very lightly — in the Blues uniforms starting in the mid ‘80s, when Harry Ornest saved the team from moving to Saskatoon (actually, the league barred the move, then Ornest bough them on a discount) and was immediately determined to mess with what was previously only a blue and yellow color scheme. He ended up settling on red accents and adding B L U E S in an arch over the bluenote logo.

Fast forward to the ‘90s, long after Ornest sold the team, and someone decided to go BIG on the red in the dark/away jerseys. It’s a controversial look, you might say.