Game Preview: Islanders at Blue Jackets

NEW YORK ISLANDERS (1-2-0) VS. COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS (2-1-0)
7 P.M. ET | NATIONWIDE ARENA
WATCH: MSG+ 2 | MSG GO | ESPN+
LISTEN: 88.7FM | 103.9FM | 1050AM
Fresh off their first win of the season, the New York Islanders look to keep the momentum going in Columbus as they face the Blue Jackets on Thursday night at Nationwide Arena.

The Islanders enter the meeting with a much-needed confidence boost after picking up their first win of the season in Chicago with a 4-1 result on Tuesday night. Oliver Wahlstrom scored twice, while Anthony Beauvillier and Cal Clutterbuck notched their first goals of the season. Ilya Sorokin claimed his first win of the season with 39 saves.
While their details against Chicago weren't as sharp as they'd like them to be, the Islanders felt it was a good building block as they move forward. Especially given the improvements to the defensive side of their game, which had relinquished 11 goals over the span of the first two games and came 26 seconds shy of a shutout against the Blackhawks.
"Especially when you've lost a couple and you're on an unusual stretch like we are, where you don't have the luxury of coming home and feeling good, you really have to bear down," Clutterbuck said. "It wasn't a whole game, that's for sure. A step in the right direction."
The Blue Jackets enter Thursday's game after suffering a 4-1 loss to Detroit on Tuesday night. All goals in the game were scored in the third period. Boone Jenner scored the lone goal for the Blue Jackets on the power play.

ISLANDERS NOTES:

• Wahlstrom scored his second and third goals of the season, marking the first two-goal game of his career. The 21-year-old winger now has three goals in his last two games. Wahlstrom also took a game-high of eight shots against Chicago.
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• Beauvillier scored his first goal of the season. The winger now has two points (1G, 1A) through three games this season.
• Clutterbuck notched his first goal of the season.
• In his third start of the season, Sorokin claimed his first victory. The Russian netminder now has a 1-2-0 record, 3.71 GAA and a .899 SV%.
• Matt Martin made his season debut after recovering from offseason ankle surgery. The winger skated alongside his usual linemates of Clutterbuck and Casey Cizikas. Martin logged 11:22 of ice time and had one fight.
• Ahead of puck drop, it was announced that Islanders captain Anders Lee would not be in the lineup due to an unrelated COVID-19 illness. In his place, Kieffer Bellows made his season debut. Bellows logged 12:59 time on ice, including 1:05 on the power play, threw a team-best five hits and had one shot. Head Coach Barry Trotz said Lee was "probable" to play on Thursday night.
• The Islanders power play was 0-for-2 against the Blackhawks, while their penalty kill was a perfect 3-for-3.
• Three of the Islanders' four goals against Chicago were unassisted. The team scored three unassisted goals for the first time since the final game of the 1998-99 season, when Trevor Linden (2) and Ziggy Palffy (2) combined for four unassisted tallies.

BLUE JACKETS NOTES:

• Jenner scored his second goal of the season and first on the power play in what ended up as the lone goal for the Blue Jackets. On Oct. 12, Columbus announced that Jenner was their captain.
• The Blue Jacket's power play is fourth-ranked in the league right now with a 44.29% clip and has scored three power-play goals this season. Conversely, their penalty kill is ranked eighth in the NHL at 88.9% and have only allowed one power-play goal against.
• In his first start of the season, Joonas Korpisalo made 41 saves on 43 shots in the loss. The Blue Jackets netminder has a 0-1-0 record, a 2.05 GAA and a .953 SV%.
• Elvis Merzlikins earned the first two starts in net of the season for Columbus, where he backstopped two victories. Merzlikins has a 2-0-0 record to start the season, a 1.47 GAA and a .948 SV%.
• Columbus underwent some substantial changes in the offseason. The team has a new bench boss as Brad Larsen was named the head coach. In the forward group, Sean Kurlay signed with his hometown club after playing his first five seasons in the NHL with Boston. Jakub Voracek returned to the club - where he got his NHL start - via a trade with Philadelphia for longtime Blue Jacket Cam Atkinson. In the d-core, the Blue Jackets picked up Jake Bean in a trade with Carolina and Adam Boqvist in a blockbuster trade with Chicago, who received Seth Jones.
• On Monday, the Blue Jackets announced that Max Domi is on IR with a rib injury that he sustained in Saturday's game against Seattle. The team also announced previously on Oct. 14 that center Emil Bemstrom was placed on IR with a left oblique strain.