Islanders at Rangers
The New York Islanders look to ride the momentum of a season-opening sweep of a home-and-home series when it faces the rival Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. Brock Nelson followed his two-goal, two-assist performance in the team's 5-3 victory over Carolina on Friday with one of each to lift the Islanders to a 4-3 triumph over the Hurricanes the following night. While pleased with the initial results, coach Jack Capuano took issue with his team's lack of success on the penalty kill (5-for-9).
The Rangers also saw their special teams spring a leak in Sunday's 6-3 loss to Toronto, yielding two power-play goals and a short-handed tally while remaining fruitless with the man advantage this season (0-for-8). Henrik Lundqvist yielded all six goals on 24 shots before making an early exit versus the Maple Leafs but owns an 8-1-0 mark with a pair of shutouts in his last nine meetings with the Islanders. Rick Nash has started the season with a flourish, scoring his fourth goal Sunday before bolting to the hospital to be with his wife for the birth of their son.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, MSG Plus 2 (Islanders), MSG (Rangers)
ABOUT THE ISLANDERS (2-0-0): While the Rangers are struggling on the power play, Capuano's club is clicking at a 50-percent clip (4-for-8). Nelson has two of those goals while offseason acquisition Johnny Boychuk and captain John Tavares have one apiece. Kyle Okposo has notched three assists this season but led the team by scoring one goal and setting up three others in five meetings with the Rangers in 2013-14.
ABOUT THE RANGERS (1-2-0): Captain Ryan McDonagh isn't interested in hearing about his team's early struggles during the 2013-14 campaign, and how it nearly all worked out in the end as the Rangers advanced to the Stanley Cup final. "I really don't want to talk any more about last year because this is a new group and we're trying to find our game, find our rhythm," he said. "It's there in spurts, very little spurts, but as a whole, we need everybody to get in sync here." McDonagh is averaging a team-best 24:31 of ice time but has a minus-3 rating.
OVERTIME
1. Rangers LW Chris Kreider collected two goals and three assists in five contests against the Islanders last season and is off to a fast start in 2014-15 (one goal, two assists).
2. Islanders D Calvin de Haan (upper body) returned to practice Monday for the first time since being placed on injured reserve.
3. Rangers LW Mats Zuccarello (shoulder) is considered day-to-day by coach Alain Vigneault and will be a game-time decision.