GAME DAY — Senators at Islanders, 3pm

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islesbar
Ottawa Senators at New York Islanders, 3:00pm ET
Uniondale, NY — Nassau Coliseum — MSG+islesbar

Update, 2:55pm: John Tavares is in. Lines are as follows:

Moulson – Tavares – Boyes
Bailey – Nielsen – Okposo
Grabner – Reasoner – Ullstrom
Martin – Cizikas – McDonald

MacDonald – Hamonic
Visnovsky – Hickey
Streit – Finley

Nabokov
Poulin

Healthy scratches:
Aucoin, Martinek, Boulton

2:20pm: John Tavares is a game time decision, Evgeni Nabokov will start in net. Defensive pairs are anticipated to be the same as Thursday.

Kevin Schultz, Islanders Point Blank:

The Islanders host the Senators tonight at the Coliseum, and we may see something we haven’t seen since the 2010-11 season; the Islanders playing without start center John Tavares. Last night, the team tweeted that Tavares was under the weather and did not practice on Saturday. Tavares also missed part of the Isles season ticket holder meet and greet on Friday night due to the sickness. There’s no word yet if Tavares will play today during the Spongebob Squarepants matinee game, but of course we’ll update when there is is more info.

As for the Senators, they’re coming in on the second half of back-to-backs. The Senators lost last night 2-1 in Philadelphia. Ottawa’s backup Ben Bishop made 39 saves in the loss, and has been starting since Craig Anderson injured his ankle. The 26-year old Bishop could be a late blooming hope for the Senators’ future in net. He’s got a .938 save percentage in six starts this season, after posting a .930 mark in the AHL last season. The Senators are still missing Erik Karlsson and Jason Spezza.

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