Buffalo, NY– For the first time in nearly 10 months, Oliver Wahlstrom is dressed for an NHL regular season game.
On Saturday night against the Buffalo Sabres, both Wahlstrom and Julien Gauthier are making their season debuts for the New York Islanders.
Wahlstrom is skating as the right wing on the Islanders’ top line next to Bo Horvat and Mathew Barzal, while Gauthier joins Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Anders Lee on the third line.
Saturday’s game against Buffalo is the first Wahlstrom has played since suffering a lower-body injury last December.
“He’s getting better, I think, every day,” Islanders head coach Lane Lambert said pregame. “The point is, you come on off a pretty significant injury; it does generally take some time. When he gets back, we’re looking for him to produce shots and produce goals. That’s part of his job.”
Highly regarded for his shot, Wahlstrom has struggled to be a consistent scorer, with 32 goals in 161 career games.
The same can be said of Gauthier.
“He’s a big guy,” Lambert said. “He needs to protect pucks and maintain possession of pucks. In doing so, I think he’ll create and generate opportunities not only for himself but for other players as well.”
A former New York Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes product, Gauthier signed a two-year contract with the Islanders this summer, hoping to, at long last, find stable footing in the NHL.
With Wahlstrom and Gauthier in the lineup, the Islanders have scratched Simon Holmstrom and Hudson Fasching, as neither have tallied a point in the team’s first three games.
The Islanders and Sabres will drop the puck from KeyBank Center in Buffalo just after 7 p.m. EST.
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