Maple Leafs @ Islanders: GAME 9

Time: 6:00 pm Eastern Time

Location: Barclays Center, Brooklyn

Broadcast/Streaming: SN360/SN1/MSG

Opponent SB Nation Site: Lighthouse Hockey

After getting stonewalled by Carey Price in the Habs net, the Leafs now head to Brooklyn to face a team in the middle of a full blown goal-tending crisis. However, like their odd-ball arena with an SUV parked along the glass, and their odd-ball game starting times, this goaltending crisis is uniquely Islanders.

The problem is they have three goalies, Jaroslav Halak, Tomas Greiss, and Jean-Francois Berube, and they are keeping all three on the roster. They have been shuffled around, with both Halak and Greiss starts, and Berube dressing as back up, not yet actually making it on the ice in a game.

This isn’t new for the Islanders. The unusual choice to keep a trio of goalies with the big club was used last season too.

The problem is the goalies hate it.

And so does Alan Walsh, noted hockey agent extraordinaire who represents both Halak and Berube.

Yesterday he went to twitter to rant, as he often does, about the treatment of his clients by the team, noting they don’t get nearly enough practice time or ice time.

Last night during HNIC Elliott Friedman dropped the bomb that the Islanders have let the league know that Halak is available for trade, apparently via some big league wide broadcast, or that secret internal website where they supposedly can post players like it’s a video game.

It will be very interesting to see who will be in net tonight. Halak is recently famous for his run in the World Cup of Hockey with Team Europe, but his NHL season hasn’t started too well. Of course, many goalies have not started well. Total goals scored league-wide is up a whopping 50% at this point in the season compared to the same time last season.

In front of the net the Leafs have to worry about this seasons’ most famous pending free agent, and well documented Toronto boy, John Tavares.

Look at him skate through the Wild defence last Saturday holding on to the puck until Hickey is open to take the shot on goal.

New additions on the Islanders this season include 2015’s 16th OA draft pick Mathew Barzal, and 28th OA draft pick Anthony Beauvillier. They are each being rotated in and out of the lineup, so either could appear this evening, but Beauvillier has played the bulk of the games so far, usually as left wing for Tavares. Barzal has dressed for only two games.

Veteran Andrew Ladd is also new to the team, playing right wing on the second line.

One subtraction from the Islanders is Matt Martin. Tonight will be his first game against the team where he spent the past seven seasons. His spot in the lineup was filled in by a rickety 37-year-old Jason Chimera.

Mikhail Grabovski continues to sit out due to medical issues carried over from last season.

MAPLE LEAFS

Forward Lines

James van Riemsdyk - Tyler Bozak - Mitch Marner

Leo Komarov - Nazem Kadri - Seth Griffith*

Zach Hyman - Auston Matthews - William Nylander

Matt Martin - Ben Smith - Connor Brown*

Defence Pairings

Morgan Rielly - Connor Carrick

Jake Gardiner - Roman Polak

Martin Marincin - Nikita Zaitsev

Goaltenders

Jhonas Enroth

Frederik Andersen

(Griffith and Brown flipped positions during last night’s game. It’s not clear if that is a permanent change by Babcock)

ISLANDERS

Forward Lines (from practice yesterday)

Anthony Beauvillier - John Tavares - Josh Bailey

Shane Prince - Brock Nelson - Andrew Ladd

Anders Lee - Ryan Strome - Alan Quine

Jason Chimera - Casey Cizikas - Cal Clutterbuck

( Nikolay Kulemin and Mathew Barzal were practicing as extras. Kulemin has been injured recently and may or may not return tonight)

Defence Pairings

Thomas Hickey - Johnny Boychuk

Calvin de Haan - Travis Hamonic

Nick Leddy - Dennis Seidenberg

Goaltenders

Tomas Greiss

Jaroslav Halak

Jean-Francois Berube

Both teams are desperate for wins here tonight. The Islanders are at the bottom of the Metropolitan division with a 3-5-0 record. The Leafs are near the bottom with a 2-3-3 record. Of course we were expecting the Leafs to be near the bottom of the division, the Islanders were not expecting to be there.

According to Puck On Net, so far this season the Islanders possession metrics, adjusted or not, are among the worst in the league (though Vancouver is the worst by far). We know the Leafs have been relatively good with the possession game, though there were net-negative events impacting the Matthews line last night.

It would be interesting to see Matthews’ line matched up against Tavares’. There was a mix-bag last night with Matthews’ line on the ice for at least some time vs. Galchenyuk’s.

I assume Enroth will start for the Leafs since Andersen played last night. Who knows who will start for the Islanders. They haven’t played since last Thursday, so everyone is well rested. Would you risk an injury to Halak now that you openly want to trade him?

Remember, it’s an early 6PM start tonight.

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