Samuel Bolduc will be in the lineup for the New York Islanders in place of the injured Scott Mayfield against the Arizona Coyotes tonight.
“Every day, I’ve still got to prepare the same as if I’m playing,” Bolduc said. “I just got to stay ready all the time, and when they give me the call to play, I’ll be ready.”
Bolduc will get his first action of the season against Arizona after making the Islanders’ roster out of training camp as the seventh defenseman. He debuted for the Islanders last season, playing in 17 games, plus two in the postseason, showing an acumen as a puck mover, but left a lot to be desired defensively.
” I think there were a lot of important moments for him last year,” Islanders head coach Lane Lambert said. “As a young player, you get your feet wet, and then you continue to learn from there. Each time that happens, the expectation is that you come out stronger.”
Bolduc will fill in for Mayfield after Mayfield took a shot off of his left ankle at the tail of the Islanders’ season-opening win against the Buffalo Sabres. He missed practice on both Monday and Tuesday and is currently listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
Bolduc will skate on the left side of the Islanders’ third defense pairing, pushing Sebastion Aho over to the right. However, it’ll be interesting to see how Lambert plans to replace Mayfield on the penalty kill. Like Bolduc, neither Aho nor Noah Dobson have proven to be strong enough in their own end to warrant consistent time playing time in that phase of the game.
The Islanders and Coyotes are scheduled to drop the puck at UBS Arena a little after 7:30 p.m. in what will be the 900th game of Matt Martin’s career.
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