The Islanders and 25 other teams across the NHL return to action today and tonight (6 p.m. start for the Isles) as the league emerges from the holiday break, welcomed by a blanket of snow.
It wouldn’t be the holidays without at least one visit from your awkward, overbearing relatives with an inflated sense of self-importance and ugly outfit. Fitting, thenm that tonight’s visitors are the Rangers, who are just two points behind in the ever-tight Metro Division. The pre-break regulation win over the Devils — thanks to Adam Pelech’s late GWG — added two points to their ledger and none for the Devils, creating a three-point gap there. It looks like the standings are going to be an up-and-down theater all season long, but if things concluded today the Islanders would open the playoffs as the road team against the Flyers.
And yet, both teams (and the Rangers, too, currently just outside the wild card) could very easily miss the playoffs when it’s all said and done.