Islanders vs. Bruins: COVID shoe is kind of on the other foot

The New York Islanders welcome the Boston Bruins to the UBS Arena tonight. Mathew Barzal who tested positive for COVID is still out, but he's the only Isles player out with COVID for this one. So the spread seems to be contained for the Isles. That isn't the case for the Bruins.

Today, three more Bruins were added to the NHL's COVID protocol. Anton Blidth, Trent Frederic, and Jeremy Swayman join Patrice Bergeron, Craig Smith, and Brad Marchand on the COVID protocol list. It's going to be a depleted Bruins team on Long Island today.

New York Islanders welcome Boston Bruins to UBS

The COVID shoe is effectively on the other foot now. And it feels weird. We all called for the Isles games to be postponed when their COVID issues started. The same should happen for the Bruins as they start theirs.

But it seems like the game will go on. From an Islanders perspective, you can't take the foot off the gas. They've got to treat this as a normal game. As if the Bruins had two of the top players in the game (Bergeron and Marchand) in their lineup.

Islanders Projected Lineup

Austin Czarnik was called up from Bridgeport and will go straight into the lineup to give the Isles a bit more depth down the middle. Expect to see these lines/pairs tonight:

Lee-Pageau-Palmieri
Beauvillier-Nelson-Bailey
Parise-Czarnik-Wahlstrom
Martin-Cizikas-Clutterbuck

Pelech-Mayfield
Chara-Dobson
Greene-Salo

Varlamov (Sorokin)

After a stint in the press box, Beauvillier looked better against Detroit, but there's still more to be desired from Beau. Today in his pre-game media availability, Trotz spoke about the Isles vet (yeah he's a veteran now) and how there's another level to his game. Another level that maybe Beau doesn't even know about:

Hopefully, Beauvillier's game continues to trend in the right direction after that loss in Detroit. Tonight, against a depleted Bruins squad is a good time to pick up some production and get his confidence back.