Top Shelf : Islanders Daily 11/9/2013

Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports

The New York Islanders look to break their two game losing streak tonight when they travel to Columbus to take on the Blue Jackets.

Columbus’ record of 5-10-0 is very deceiving as this is a much better club than that indicates. However with only 36 goals in 15 games, it is imperative that New York gets off to a fast start and comes up with two points this evening.

Even though Kevin Poulin is much deserving of another start in the Islanders cage, the widely held assumption is that Evgeni Nabokov will go tonight with Poulin drawing the start tomorrow as the team concludes their brief trip with a visit to Montreal.

In other NHL news, Ilya Bryzgalov is finally back in the National Hockey League, signing a deal for an undisclosed amount with the Edmonton Oilers. Edmonton also shipped defensemen Ladoslav Smid to Calgary for two prospects.

On the lighter side of the news, Adam Proteau of the Hockey News re-tweeted a parody Gord Murphy TSN account last night statement that announced Ales Hemsky had been traded to the Flyers for Wayne Simmonds. With rumors of Hemsky’s locker being cleared in Edmonton and a trade imminent, everyone jumped on the news and shared in the embarrassment. Fun times on the interwebs for a Friday night.

In Case You Missed It

• After ranking the forwards and defensemen, I closed out October report cards with the goaltending (EOI)
• Joe Powers took a look at the teams recent struggles on the road (EOI)
• Jon Zella with a great piece highlighting the positives 16 games in (EOI)
• Dominik spoke with his colleague and got some scouting on the Jackets ahead of the game (LHH)
• Isles power play is out of sync….you don’t say? (Pro Hockey Talk)
• Chris Triantafilis on why Aaron Ness was the only logical option for Isles (Isles Optimism)

Two Minutes for Tweeting

• Exactly….Poulin played real well as did the defense, granted against not exactly an offensive powerhouse. If offense even clicks a little, Isles win that hockey game.

• Mike with some good, honest, logical analysis here. The D is coming, just not yet.

• Art Staple talked about it on our latest edition of the Dump and Chase podcast as well with regards to the importance of Lubo being out of the lineup .And it could be a while longer before we see him back on the ice.

• Whenever you could incorporate ‘unrustle’ and ‘jimmies’ into the same tweet, its pure gold. Must inclusion in this section for this morning. ?

Around The NHL

• Toronto 2, New Jersey 1 (Shootout)
• Winnipeg 5, Nashville 0
• Colorado 4, Calgary 2
• Anaheim 6, Buffalo 2

Across The Sound

The Sound Tigers begin a stretch of 3 games in 3 days, starting tonight at Hershey followed by a home game against Adirondack and a quick trip to Albany. It will be interesting to see if Aaron Ness remains with the big club or is sent back.

The Tigers are 3-5-1 and currently occupy last place in the division. Ryan Strome leads the team with 3-11-14 in 9 games and Mike Halmo has picked up 6-4-10 in 8 games.

Anders Nilsson is still trying to find his game with 3.68, .871 in 7 starts.