Preview: New York Islanders vs. Anaheim Ducks

After failing to score on Saturday night, the New York Islanders offense has dried up faster than the Barclays Center.

The result was a 1-0 loss to the Arizona Coyotes, who coming into the night had allowed the third most goals in the league. It was the team’s third loss in a row, a streak in which the Islanders have only scored two goals.

Tonight, they face off against the last-place Anaheim Ducks.

Anaheim has to be one of the most threatening last-place teams of all time. They generate the fifth most shot attempts per game (57.7 CF/60) in the league and allow the tenth least against (51.4 CA/60). They also still have Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, which counts for something, and their team is littered with other young talent.

Realistically, the only reason they’re struggling so much is an extremely low shooting percentage. They have the lowest all-situation shooting percentage in the league and not by a small margin.

Luckily for the Islanders, their goalies have been keeping other teams’ shooting percentages low all season. Jaroslav Halak and Thomas Greiss have combined to give the Islanders the third highest all-situation save percentage (92.1%) in the entire league, and Halak will look to continue the tandem’s success as he gets the nod in net.

Unfortunately for Halak, that may be slightly harder to do with Brian Strait (Bad NHL player) checking in for Marek Zidlicky (Above-Average NHL player):

Kyle Okposo will miss his second straight game with an injury as Jack Capuano stated on Friday, and the first power play remains a mystery in his absence. As we speculated after Okposo went down, Ryan Strome did get some time on the top power play unit last game, but it was a short-lived experiment.

Related Story: Okposo out Until At Least Dec. 27

The combination of Strome, John Tavares, Josh Bailey, Nick Leddy and Frans Neilson was the first to be given a shot. They moved the puck well in the zone, but had little else to show for their time on the man advantage and were broken up immediately after. It’s possible that they go back to this setup though, as the rest of their power play time looked just as bad, if not worse.

Whether it’s on the power play or not, the Islanders need to score. Preferably for Islanders fans, they’ll do it more often than the Ducks.

Next: Kirill Petrov Assigned to the KHL

(All stats courtesy of waronice.com)