Today at 1:00 p.m. ET, the New Jersey Devils (25-22-13, 63 points) and New York Islanders (23-30-8, 54 points) skate against each other for the third of five times this season live from the Nassau Coliseum in New York. The game can be live streamed here. New Jersey fans can hear all of the hard-hitting action on 101.9 WFAN while New York fans can do the same on 88.7 WRHU.
New York and New Jersey each picked up victories in their first games back from the Olympic break with New York defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4 and New Jersey topping the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-2. These teams have alternated wins through the first two meetings, with the Islanders picking up a 4-3 shootout win on Oct. 4 in New Jersey and the Devils gaining revenge with a 2-1 win on Long Island on Dec. 28.
The Devils enter play in 11th place in the Eastern Conference, and are trying to control what they can control rather than watch what's going on with playoff teams around the league.
"We talked about [how], as hard as it is not to scoreboard watch here and look [at] what other teams are doing, we have to take care of our own game and put our head down and win as many games as we possibly can," coach Peter DeBoer said in Tom Gulitti's Fire & Ice blog. "That's all we're concentrating on."
Jaromir Jagr enters play looking to become the seventh NHL player in history to score 700 goals.
The Islanders are looking to navigate through life without captain and leading scorer John Tavares, who suffered a season-ending leg injury in the Sochi Games. New York has some young guns that will be looking to shine.
"It's almost like we come in here a little naive to the situation," Anders Lee, who netted two goals against the Maple Leafs, told Newsday. "We came up to help this team win, the past is the past and we're just moving forward."
The Islanders have been led offensively without Tavares by Kyle Okposo (24-35-59), Tomas Vanek (19-30-49) and Frans Nielsen (18-25-43) while Jagr (18-32-50), Patrik Elias (12-24-36) and Adam Henrique (16-13-29) have paced the Devils.
Martin Brodeur will start between the pipes for New Jersey and is 13-11-4 with a 2.52 goals-against average and a .899 save percentage while Evgeni Nabokov will likely suit up for New York and is 11-12-5 with a 2.78 GAA and a .905 save percentage.
Two division rivals clash when the Devils and Islanders hit the ice at the Nassau Coliseum today in New York.
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