The Islanders have a daunting November road trip ahead, but the travel part doesn’t kick in until later this week. For now, and tonight, they’re just over in Newark to complete the weekend’s metro area tour.
That started with a thud at home on Long Island in an uninspiring loss to the Wild, but rebounded wonderfully with shuffled lines the next night in a shutout of the Rangers at the Garden. Tonight begins the real competition, starting with the 11-4-0 Devils.
There are so many crazy things happening in the NHL right now — the Pacific-leading (!) Ducks have won seven in a row! — that the Devils going toe to toe with Carolina for the Metro Division lead is relegated to a “they’ve been due to arrive” footnote.
And then over here you have the in-transition, retooling Islanders, who go as Bo Horvat, Ilya Sorokin or Matthew Schaefer go. They are in the thick of a large mass of average wild-card chasers in the East. Even if this western road trip goes south, they’ll probably still be there when they return home six games from now.
Sunday’s NHL scores included a Penguins loss, a Hurricanes win, a Red Wings loss and five points for Nathan MacKinnon.
