The New York Islanders (3-4-2) visit the Columbus Blue Jackets (4-3-1) in a Wednesday night matchup between two teams who are neck-and-neck in the middle of the Metropolitan Division early in the season.
Continue reading for picks and predictions for tonight's matchup, courtesy of our friends at Daily Faceoff.
Islanders fans were frustrated again by their team’s home performance on Tuesday. New York outshot Anaheim 41-22, yet the Ducks won 3-1, leaving the Islanders at 1-4-1 at home.
New York now heads on a three-game road stretch starting Wednesday in Columbus, but the road hasn’t been much better.
Though .500 on the road this season, two of their three shutout losses happened away from UBS Arena, and they’ve won less than 42 percent of their road games over the last four seasons.
Meanwhile, Columbus has made good on a favorable schedule. The Blue Jackets have played some tough teams, but like the Islanders, many had played the previous day.
New York will be the fifth team that will have to play Columbus in the second half of a back-to-back, and so far, the Blue Jackets are 3-1-1 in those games with wins over Buffalo, Toronto, and Edmonton. They’ve also covered the puck line in all five games.
No team has scored more even-strength goals per 60 minutes than Columbus to date, and the Islanders currently rank 30th in that category. New York has had offensive outbursts, but they’ve also been shut down in nearly half of their games.
Semyon Varlamov hasn’t gotten off to a good start, either. The 36-year-old goaltender has an .856 save percentage and a 3.72 goals-against average. That said, six out of the eight games that Columbus has played have featured seven goals or more, as have five out of the nine games New York has played.
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NY Islanders | -135 ML |
COL Blue Jackets | +115 ML |
Puck Line | NY -1.5 (+180) |
Total | O/U 6.5 |
This article was written by a partner sports writer via Better Collective. Odds displayed within this article were correct at the time of writing and are subject to change.