Kevin Poulin recalled

...and per Arthur Staple, he will be in the nets against Dallas tonight.

Assuming Poulin plays, he will be the 5th goaltender to play for the Isles this season. No other team has used more than three.  (The club record of six was set last season, although at this stage they had used only 2!)

Poulin actually has more NHL experience than the goaltender Dallas is expecting to use tonight.  Poulin played in 10 games last season before being injured in warm-ups against Toronto on February 8th); Richard Bachman, the first Utah native to record an NHL shutout (thanks, NHL) has only 4 games of NHL experience, three of which have come this month.

DiPietro has been placed on IR; Nabokov is also apparently not ready to go. 

Calvin de Haan has also been recalled in place of Steve Staios and the 20 year old  (5-9-91) will be the youngest player on the ice tonight as he makes his NHL debut.  deHaan will wear #44, which was last worn by Rob Schremp.  deHaan is slightly older than Travis Hamonic was when he made his debut as an Islander last season.  The only other 20 year old defenseman to have played for the Isles since 2001 is Anton Klementyev who played 1 game -- on March 27, 2010. (Klementyev, now just 21, plays for Bridgeport).

With deHaan in the line-up, the Isles are expected to dress 3 defensemen with at least 300 games of experience (Mottau will play his 300th game tonight) and three with less than 100 games of experience (Hamonic, Reese, deHaan).

 

Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since 1982. Visit my blog: NYISkinny.com and follow me on Twitter @ehornick