It’s Halloween weekend and it’s time to dole out the tricks and treats on a Friday night in the NHL. Thankfully, hockey is the one sport where wearing a goalie mask isn’t indicative of being a camp-roaming serial killer. As always, all times are Eastern thanks to our raging Eastern bias.
7:00 pm
Montreal @ NY Islanders
The Habs go rolling into Long Island on a three-game win streak and will get to have backup Alex Auld try to lead the way for them in goal. The Habs have been playing tough defensively of late and with timely goal scoring thanks to the likes of Andrei Kostitsyn and Jeff Halpern, they’ve done well. The Isles, meanwhile, have James Wisniewski leading the way for them, he of his 11 points this year. Of course, Wisniewski could be on the hunt for payback against Travis Moen who laid a questionable hit on him when these two met up the other night.
Carolina @ NY Rangers
With Derek Boogaard being questionable for the game, young Russian forward Evgeny Grachev will get his first shot of the season on the ice for the Rangers. Of course, Grachev is a scorer and not a face-pounder so don’t expect the same kind of action there. The Rangers will have to be a lot more consistent if they’re going to contain the Hurricanes. After losing in disappointing fashion to Atlanta, another Southeastern team looking to be a playoff contender comes to New York looking to show up the Blueshirts. The Canes aren’t scoring a lot, but they’re keeping teams off the board well. Hello, recipe for Rangers disaster.
Philadelphia @ Pittsburgh
Suffice to say, the Mike Comrie experiment isn’t going well for Pittsburgh. After already ending up as a healthy scratch once this year, Comrie is set to be on the fourth line tonight. That’s not good for Pittsburgh’s offense, but lately it’s the goaltending that’s gone under the microscope for the Pens. As for Philly, they’ll be looking to get Nikolay Zherdev going as he was counted on being a top six performer for them and as of now, he’s got just two goals. Instead, he too will be mired on the fourth line in the doghouse. Ouch.
7:30 pm
Buffalo @ Atlanta
These two teams just met up in Atlanta last week with the Sabres coming out on top. Atlanta will look to change things up a bit as they come into the game coming off a nice win over the Rangers on Wednesday. The Thrashers will get defenseman Zach Bogosian back into the lineup tonight so that should help. Buffalo, meanwhile, would like to put their loss to Philly on Wednesday behind them. The Sabres will need to stiffen up the defense if they’re going to win as they’ve been rather miserable there sitting 24th in the league in goals allowed. After Ryan Miller carried them last year while the offense sputtered, the script has been flipped so far this season. Hockey is funny that way.
8:30 pm
Edmonton @ Chicago
The Blackhawks start their stint without Marian Hossa having to deal with the Oilers who are coming off a bummer of a defeat in the shootout against Columbus last night. Taylor Hall will hope that breaking out of his goal funk last night will lead to breaking things open for him, but against Chicago that might be asking a lot as Marty Turco has been solid this season. The guy the Oilers will really need to be worried about is Patrick Sharp. Sharp so far has been an offensive revelation for Chicago and unafraid to both dish it off or shoot the puck.
10:00 pm
New Jersey @ Anaheim
The Devils struggles this year have been discussed ad nauseum as have the Ducks’ defensive woes. Something has to break here, right? The Ducks have been a tough home team this year and the Devils have been banged up for most of the season with little flexibility to make changes. This almost reads like a depressing novel. Getting Ilya Kovalchuk going would be a huge help for the Devils and against the Ducks porous defense, all things are possible. Speaking of porous defense, the Devils are 28th in the NHL in goals against. Rolling with that while the offense is dead last in the league shows how badly the Devils are hurting.