Tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET, the Pittsburgh Penguins (18-9-1, 37 points) and New York Islanders (8-15-4, 20 points) hit the ice at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Long Island, N.Y. for the third of four meetings this season. The game can be live streamed here. Pittsburgh fans can hear all of the hard-hitting action on 105.9 WXDX The X while New York fans can do the same on 88.7 WRHU.
Pittsburgh enters the play banged up and owns the second-best record in the Eastern Conference while New York had a rough month of November and is enduring a six-game losing streak. These teams split their first two games against each other, with the Islanders winning 4-3 in Pittsburgh on Oct. 25 while the Penguins got revenge with a 4-3 win in New York on Nov. 22.
The Penguins have dealt with injuries but are still successful coming off of a 5-1 win over the Florida Panthers on Saturday.
"We certainly are not a team that sounds any alarms or bells, scraps game plans or how we're going to play because of an injury here or there," coach Dan Bylsma told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "We've always felt like we can win a hockey game and be a good team regardless of the injuries."
The Islanders' latest set-back was a 3-2 overtime loss to the Washington Capitals on Saturday after letting up a short-handed goal with less than a minute left in the third to force the extra frame.
"We finally get the lead and instead of keep playing hard, we sat back for no reason," Thomas Vanek said Saturday per NHL.com. "We should have took it to them for 60 minutes, and not 59."
New York has been led by captain John Tavares, who has 30 points off of 11 goals and 19 assists while Kyle Okposo has lit the lamp six times and added 17 assists for 23 points and Frans Nielsen has 10 tallies and 12 helpers for 22 points.
Pittsburgh has also been paced by its captain as Sidney Crosby has 13 goals and 23 assists for 36 points while Evgeni Malkin has been hot lately and has seven tallies and 28 helpers for 35 points and Chris Kunitz has found the back of the net 14 times and added 13 assists for 27 points.
The Pens scorers will try to beat Kevin Poulin in between the pipes for the Islanders. Poulin is 3-10-0 with a 3.24 goals-against average and a .887 save percentage this season while Marc-Andre Fleury has manned the crease for Pittsburgh in 23 of 29 games and is 14-7-1 with a 2.06 GAA and a .918 save percentage.
The Penguins look to keep pace atop the conference standings while the Islanders hope that December will be better for them than November was when the lights come on at Nassau Coliseum tonight in New York.
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