Big Changes from Capuano as Lines Shuffled

Remember, remember the 5th of November...as the day Jack Capuano blew up the lines. Of course, that's what anyone should do when their team is only averaging 1.8 goals per game through their first 10 games and is mired in a six-game winless streak.

After the Islanders were shut out by the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday night, Capuano voiced his displeasure and announced he was going to switch things up a bit. While they took many shots, they were so out of sync that many didn't hit the net, and many passes were errant.

So here's the new look for tonight's game against the Washington Capitals:

Moulson-Tavares-Grabner
Rolston-Nielsen-Parenteau
Comeau-Reasoner-Okposo
Pandolfo-Bailey-Martin

Rick DiPietro starts again for the 3rd straight game.

As far as the lines go, we have some interesting looks here. In my opinion, when Capuano announced that changes were coming I had some of my own ideas. For example, I would have tried Okposo on the first line, and Martin on line two with Grabner and Nielsen. In a way, I'd like to see Martin get more involved with crashing the net, and I think playing with two faster guys could have helped him get some good rebound opportunities up front.

Bailey looks completely lost to me, and very hesitant to make plays. It comes as no surprise to me that he's now been demoted to the fourth line. In very limited time, I've actually liked some of what I've seen out of Reasoner, so I'm curious to see if he can keep some of that up. He is a bit slower than you would ideally like to see between Okposo and Comeau, but having that veteran presence may not be so bad.

Capuano is certainly taking a leap of faith with some of his decisions, and we'll see if anything changes so close to game time here.

NYI FYI TODAY: Since Sean will be out of town tomorrow, we'll actually be going live TODAY at 12 noon. You can watch us on our uStream page, and get the podcast shortly after the show is complete. We'll have a lot to discuss with the line changes this morning. You're all encouraged to participate in the discussion by either the uStream chat room or leaving a response on Twitter.

Enjoy the show guys!

-Chris

nyifyi@gmail.com