SEATTLE — The Islanders’ fourth line has been their most consistent trio throughout the last couple of weeks, so it counted as a surprise that Kyle MacLean, Casey Cizikas and Marc Gatcomb were together no more on Wednesday against the Kraken.
Instead, MacLean was moved up to play on Cal Ritchie’s left wing alongside Emil Heineman, while Gatcomb drew out of the lineup as a healthy scratch.
Cizikas continued to center the fourth line, but his two wingers were Maxim Tsyplakov and Max Shabanov, the latter of whom came back into the lineup after sitting out as a healthy scratch in Monday’s win over the Canucks.
In the eventual 4-1 loss to the Kraken, neither combination looked especially convincing.
“Sometimes you go with your feelings, your gut feeling,” coach Patrick Roy said before the game. “We want to put Shabby back in the lineup, so we feel we want to give a shot at Sippy and him playing with Casey.
“Casey’s playing so well, he brings so much energy, so I feel like that could be a good fit for the three of them. Kyle will play with Calum and Heiny; Kyle’s been really good on faceoffs, so if we need a left-right, we have that option as well.”
During the third, though, he briefly attempted mixing and matching the lines, though nothing ultimately stuck — a tacit admission that his long search for the right combination is still ongoing.
“It was a night like that, I guess,” Roy said.
Shabanov was one of the Islanders’ better players at five-on-five, though Tsyplakov wasn’t especially noticeable across 9:14 of ice after being benched for the last two periods on Monday night.
“We all want him to succeed,” Roy said. “Hope that tonight can give him a little bit of excitement playing with Shabby. I know they love to play together.”
As for MacLean, this was only the fourth time in his NHL career he’s played on a line other than the fourth, and the first game ever where he’s started in the top six.
Roy said that watching the goalie fight between Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky and San Jose’s Alex Nedeljkovic on Monday “brought some memories back.”
“Things that, I guess I wish I would not have done, to be honest with you,” Roy said, referencing his infamous pair of bouts against Mike Vernon and Chris Osgood during the height of the Avalanche-Red Wings rivalry in the late 1990s. “Maybe I’m older now, I don’t know what it is. But I understand what he tried to do. Sometimes you care so much about your teammate, you want to be there for them, you want to show them that you’re part of it and I think that’s what he did.”
