Four games into the season, the Islanders have their first traveling back-to-back, though it’s an opponent they saw, and defeated, in their season opener.
The forever upstart Sabres are off to a 1-3 start and the pressure is likely pretty high for them to not blow this revenge match. In their favor is that the Islanders played last night, with extra time (an OT loss to the Devils), and with a lot of tiring (and unsuccessful) work on the penalty kill, while tonight they are expected to give Semyon Varlamov his first start of the season.
Opposite Varlamov, Eric Comrie is expected to receive his first start of the season. Buffalo’s anticipated goalie carousel is already at full spin: Devon Levi, who faced the Isles a week ago, is out with a short-term lower body injury.
Sabres projected lines:
Jordan Greenway — Tage Thompson — Dylan Cozens
Jeff Skinner — Casey Mittelstadt — Alex Tuch
JJ Peterka — Tyson Jost — Victor Olofsson
Zemgus Girgensons — Peyton Krebs — Kyle Okposo
Mattias Samuelsson — Rasmus Dahlin
Owen Power — Henri Jokiharju
Connor Clifton — Erik Johnson
Eric Comrie
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen
Islanders Projected Lines
Mathew Barzal — Bo Horvat — Simon Holmstrom
Pierre Engvall — Brock Nelson — Kyle Palmieri
Anders Lee — Jean-Gabriel Pageau — Hudson Fasching
Matt Martin — Casey Cizikas — Cal Clutterbuck
Adam Pelech — Noah Dobson
Alexander Romanov — Ryan Pulock
Samuel Bolduc — Sebastian Aho
Semyon Varlamov
Ilya Sorokin