New York Islanders Preseason About To Begin

Credit : Andy Graziano

Its time….summer is over, the air is crisp and the New York Islanders preseason slate is about to begin as the team boards an airplane for their first road trip of the 2013-14 season.

With some new acquisitions in tow and some roster spots to be won, not all the 51 players now in training camp are on the split squad rosters for tomorrow night’s match-up with the Calgary Flames.

Those left off the initial roster will skate and workout at the Nassau Coliseum before the official resumption of camp on Friday morning.

The official Islanders Facebook page today announced that the game in Calgary will be streamed via the official website of the club (thanks to the Flames for providing), with an audio feed being available for the Regina game.

Arthur Staple, Islanders beat reporter from Newsday, was present at the Coliseum today and got the roster announcement shortly after 1pm when group B finished up their session.

Traveling to Calgary : 

Bailey, Grabner, Persson, Kabanov, Halmo, Nielsen, Regin, Wetmore, Clark, Okposo, Clutterbuck, Bruton, Johnson…

MacDonald, Reinhart, de Haan, Donovan, Pulock, Carkner.

Poulin, Nilsson and Milner in goal.

Traveling to Regina:

Tavares, Strome, Martin, Cizikas, Nelson, Moulson, Bouchard, Lee, Boulton, McDonald, Sundstrom, Gallant…

Hamonic, Hickey, Visnovsky, Strait, Finley, Mayfield, Ness.

Nabokov and Reiter in goal

Head coach Jack Capuano instructed the media that lines and defensive pairings won’t set or announced until after the full group skate in Regina tomorrow morning.

With the season fast approaching, this will be the coaching staff’s first opportunity to see the squad in competitive action and I am sure they, along with the fans, are anxious to see not only how the newcomers are going to mesh into the lineup but how the youngsters perform. They might only get this run of preseason games over the next two weeks to decide their 2013-14 future at the NHL level, barring any unforeseen injuries, of course.

So far, standouts in camp include Matt Donovan, Calvin Dehaan, Ryan Strome, Brock Nelson and Kenny Reiter.

-Andy (@tazman19)