The Islanders are changing plenty as they head into their matchup with the Ottawa Senators, and the biggest adjustment comes in goal.
After finishing their three-game homestand with a 3-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks, New York now turns to a Senators team that has come out hot with a 5-2-0 record. Ottawa has gotten standout work from Linus Ullmark, who is 5-0-0 with a 1.27 goals-against average and a .948 save percentage, setting up a tough test for the Islanders no matter how their lineup shakes out.
And shake it out they have.
According to Andrew Gross of Newsday on X, Matias Maccelli is moving onto the first line after extending his point streak to four games and scoring his first goal with the Islanders against Vancouver. He’s flanking Bo Horvat, who has picked up at least one point in each of the team’s first six games, and Kyle Palmieri, who scored his first two goals of the season against the Canucks, is on the other side.
The second line keeps Brayden Schenn alongside the club’s young center Cal Ritchie and Victor Eklund on the right side. Ondrej Palat is set on the third line with JG Pageau and Anthony Duclair.
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The fourth line has Emil Heineman, Casey Cizikas and Simon Holmstrom, with Peter DeBoer hoping the wingers can get something out of Cizikas’s style the way Maccelli, Palat and Duclair have at different points this season.
On the blue line, Matthew Kessel stays in the mix with Tony DeAngelo on the third pair after Kessel’s successful season debut against Vancouver. Scott Mayfield is again a healthy scratch.
Logan Stanley and Matthew Schaefer remain together as the top pair, while Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock make up the second pair.
The other notable twist: Ilya Sorokin is out of the net. Semyon Varlamov gets the start instead, and it’ll be his second outing of the season after he played Oct. 6 against the New York Rangers in a 5-2 loss.
In Other News...
Islanders Grind Out A Win That Created A New Worry
The Islanders left Toronto with a 4-1 win and a reminder that a hard-earned road victory can still come with a cost. Anthony Duclair, Bo Horvat and Simon Holmstrom all scored, Ilya Sorokin stopped 28 shots, and New York spent most of the night managing the game with a shortened bench after losing Cal Ritchie and Matias Maccelli in the opening period.
The result was encouraging in the moment, especially after the Islanders absorbed the early blows and still controlled enough of the night to put the game away. But the bigger concern now is how the forward group looks moving forward, because the injuries forced the team to patch together its lines on the fly and left another question hanging over an already thin lineup. [Read more 🡒]
Varlamov Just Made The Islanders Backup Goalie Decision Much Tougher
Semyon Varlamovs return to the Islanders crease has already made the backup goalie conversation more interesting than it looked a few weeks ago. In a shootout loss to Ottawa, he turned aside 18 of 21 shots in his second start of the season, a solid step forward for a veteran who has only recently gotten back into NHL game action after a long rehab from double-knee replacement.
For a team trying to settle the picture behind Ilya Sorokin, that matters. Varlamovs latest outing suggested he may have earned himself more runway with New York, even if the long-term fit still feels unresolved, and the Islanders now have a tougher call to make as they sort out who belongs in that No. 2 role. [Read more 🡒]
Islanders Are Running Out Of Time To Solve Their Biggest Problem
The Islanders have kept themselves afloat with sound team defense, but the scoring drought is starting to define the early part of their season. Pete DeBoer has been shuffling the forward group in an effort to spread offense across four lines, and the search has already touched several familiar names, including Kyle Palmieri as he works back from a knee injury and players such as Simon Holmstrom and Matias Maccelli in changing roles.
Mathew Barzals absence has only sharpened the problem, leaving the lineup short on the kind of skill that can tilt games when chances are scarce. With goal production lagging behind the rest of the structure, the Islanders are now trying to find a combination that gives them more than a strong defensive effort and a few scattered looks, because the calendar will not give them much more time to keep experimenting. [Read more 🡒]