Isles' weary, injured 'D' returns to work
Islanders' Steve Staios celebrates his third period goal against the Chicago Blackhawks with teammates Milan Jurcina, Frans Nielsen and Kyle Okposo. (Dec. 8, 2011) Credit: Jim McIsaac
After a running-in-place road trip, with a win in Winnipeg and a loss in St. Louis, the Islanders get back to work Saturday night at the Coliseum with the playoffs still off in the distance and a weary lineup.
Jack Capuano said he hadn't gotten any health updates on flu-ridden Steve Staios and Evgeni Nabokov, both of whom were last-minute scratches for Thursday's 5-1 loss to the Blues, but the Islanders did call up goaltender Kevin Poulin as insurance against Nabokov possibly missing Saturday night's game against the Hurricanes.
Ty Wishart already was up as the extra defenseman when pressed into service on Thursday with Staios out. Wishart became the 11th defenseman to play a game for the Isles this season; it's not near the emergency stage of late last season, when the Islanders were signing players to one-day tryouts to fill out a depleted defense, but the injuries are starting to show.
Mark Eaton, who had been a stalwart the last dozen games, was a minus-3 on Thursday. Milan Jurcina, somewhat better of late, was a minus-2 and on for both Blues power-play goals, when he wasn't physical enough in front of Al Montoya to help out on a couple screens.
"Some of those guys have logged a lot of minutes," Capuano said.
Mark Streit and Andrew MacDonald have gotten the bulk of the defensive minutes with Travis Hamonic (broken nose) still out, and not returning anytime soon.
