Islanders Gameday: Tonight we’re gonna rivalry like it’s 1999
Let’s not push too hard here... | Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
You both are zero, zero, party over, oops, out of time. Tonight the Islanders and Rangers face off for a late season “battle” in which both are theoretically chasing a playoff spot but are realistically just finding new or repetitive ways to torment their fanbase.
It’s not quite the late ‘90s, when both teams were really bad and missing the postseason for multiple seasons in a row, but there are echoes. Each team sits — slouches, really — at 79 points, eight points behind the final wild card-holding Canadiens who have won six in a row.
Punctuating how much they don’t want this, the Smurfs even lost 8-5 last night to the Flyers(!), leaving them with just four games to go and zero margin left. Both teams are in that Everything Must Go Right spot when we know full well it will all go wrong.
First Islanders Goal picks go here.
Islanders News
Previewing tonight: I guess there is some incentive to avoid a season sweep. The Isles have been bad in these meetings thus far. [Isles]
Mike Reilly, coming back from in-season heart surgery, gets the Isles Masterton nomination. [Isles | Newsday]
[UPDATED] Patrick Roy said in postgame that he pulled Ilya Sorokin (upper body) as a “precaution” after the collision he suffered in Nashville but I guess we’ll learn more today. now they’re calling it lower body and Tristan Lennox is up on emergency recall. [@AGrossNewsday]
J-G Pageau’s play since the trade deadline and departure of Brock Nelson has been a plus. [THN]
Elsewhere
Last night’s NHL scores...don’t really matter anymore now do they? Chris Kreider scored his 21st, likely his last in front of home fans at the Garden.
Another loss in the NHL family this week; R.I.P. Ray Shero. [NHL | Athletic]
The Devils clinched a playoff spot and a first-round meeting with the Hurricanes. [NHL]
Gabriel Landeskog’s longshot comeback attempt continues with an AHL conditioning assignment. [NHL]
Brady Tkachuk makes two Tkachuks not expected to play again until the playoffs. [NHL]
Budweiser sends special cans to the few dozen goalies who faced Alex Ovechkin without ever giving up a goal. Ilya Sorokin was this close. (Did anyone check if Kid Rock is okay with this?) [NHL]
When players who fight each other end up as teammates. [Athletic]
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