Last day of prep this week

 Islanders have had the luxury of a couple days of practice to prep for the Northeast-leading Buffalo Sabres, who will head into the Coliseum with a 29-11-5 record and 63 points.

The Sabres will actually be skating today at the Coliseum at 2 p.m.

Will tomorrow be Rick DiPietro's next start and first in front of a home crowd?

Would not be surprised. DiPietro is practicing in his own net today while Dwayne Roloson and Martin Biron are splitting reps at the other end. Goaltending consultant Sudarshan Maharaj has been working with DiPietro this past week, fine-tuning some technical stuff in anticipation of his next start.

There's also a couple of special visitors at NVMC today for the Islanders practice. Rob Schremp's parents, Mark and Lisa, made the long drive down from Fulton, NY to spend the weekend with Rob and help him move into his new apartment. I bet they are hoping to see him score a goal Saturday that is half as good as the one last Wednesday against Colorado...always nice to have the folks around.

Here are the line combos from practice:

Bailey-Tavares-Okposo

Moulson-Nielsen-Hunter

Comeau-Schremp-Sim

Bergenheim-Weight-Park

Sutton-Hillen

Streit-MacDonald

Meyer-Gervais

DiPietro

Roloson

Biron