How to Watch
Time: 8:00 PM ET
Place: Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
TV: FS-D, MSG+
Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket, 1270 AM
Isles Blog: Lighthouse Hockey
Game Preview
A tale of two different seasons as the Red Wings (15-43-4) travel to New York and take on the Islanders (33-20-6) tonight. The Wings pulled off the season sweep of the Canadiens on Tuesday night, thanks to a three-goal third period comeback.
It’s all about playing for pride in that Wings locker room as the season winds down, but on the other end, the Isles find themselves in the midst of a wild card race.
Barry Trotz’s team has been reeling as of late — losers of four straight — and will try to take advantage of a Wings team that is currently last in the NHL by a large margin. It’s been an absolute power outage for the Isles on this four-game skid as they’ve been shutout twice, managing just two goals in that stretch.
Two forwards to keep an eye on for the Isles are Mathew Barzal and Brock Nelson, both of which have been Wings killers over the course of their careers. Barzal has 14 points in eight career games against Detroit, while Nelson has 16 points (including 10 goals) in 20 games.
Wins have been hard to come by for the Wings this year and that’s why fans celebrated a little harder on Tuesday, knowing they not only beat, but swept an Original Six rival this year. But, let’s not sugarcoat the ugliness of this season as Detroit has won just one of their last five games.
One bright spot as of late has been the play of Andreas Athanasiou — it’s nice to see considering the injuries that have plagued him this year — as he notched a pair of goals the other night and now has five to show for in his last six games.
Dylan Larkin has been comfortable playing the Isles for his career as he enters tonight’s game with 13 points in 14 games. Are we nearing the end of Jonathan Bernier in Detroit? He’s 8-7-0 with a 2.19 GAA and .931 SV% since Dec. 12 and could be a valuable backup to any playoff contender with the trade deadline approaching on Monday.
The Isles will raise John Tonelli’s jersey to the rafters tonight. He tallied 836 points in 1,028 games and was a four-time Stanley Cup winner with the team.
