New York Islanders vs. Colorado Avalanche: Game 9
Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
The Isles again aim for the elusive third win in a row. The New York Islanders are suddenly back to Traditional Math .500, with a clean 4-4 record after refreshing wins against the Rangers and Hurricanes this week. As Steve elaborated in last night’s recap and this morning, that...wasn’t exactly the expected trajectory after the rollover to the Devils and the pointless Florida swing.
But the biggest test of all, surely, is tonight when the defending Cup champ Colorado Avalanche swing by, fresh off a shutout loss in Newark last night. (Even more insulting, it came against the Devils in their terrible black unis. What an opportunity, the original Colorado Rockies and the replacement Colorado Nordiqu-alanche facing off and yet these are the threads the teams wore.)
Figure former Av Semyon Varlamov to start since Ilya Sorokin handled duties last night. Other than that, we assume all things are the same as last night in Raleigh was arguably their best performance of the season.
It was a travel day though, so any injury-related or other decision-making won’t be revealed until a bit before gametime.
The Avalanche, of course, are without Gabriel Landeskog to knee surgery and Nazim Kadri to #CupChampCapProblems. (Ironically, the Islanders are also without Kadri due to #OldVetCapProblems.) So the visitors should be a little less threatening than, well, than last spring, anyway. But the teams finished 35 points apart in the standings last season, so I believe Colorado has some margin for error.
Before the game, no doubt the Isles will honor last night’s game-winning scorer for his 1000th game with a silver stick and a jersey with 1000 and other such things. Here he is over the years...:
15 seasons as an Islander. pic.twitter.com/F7AVgPd8lV— New York Islanders (@NYIslanders) October 29, 2022
Enjoy the evening and Mr. Bailey’s Game 1,001....
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