Islanders look to snap losing streak, top Hurricanes

HURRICANES (5-4-1) at ISLANDERS (4-6-1)

TV: FS-CR, MSG-PLUS

Last 10: NY Islanders 4-5-1

Season series: This is the first of three meetings. The Islanders swept the four-game season series in 2011-12.

Big story: New York tries to end its four-game losing streak, and a home game against Carolina is coming at just the right time as the Hurricanes have lost four straight to the Islanders.

Team Scope:

Hurricanes: Carolina plays the fifth of sixth straight road games when they visit Uniondale on Monday, and will try to earn two more points on what has been a successful trip thus far. While the Hurricanes battled back to force overtime in their last game against the Flyers on Saturday, they couldn't grab the extra point as a Danny Briere snap shot that beat Cam Ward resulted in a 4-3 loss.

"All in all, we pick up a point here on the road on a long road trip, which is great," coach Kirk Muller said. "Defensively, we've got to continue to win more battles."

Islanders: Usually, when a team outshoots its opponent 43-15, there is a very good chance that it will win most of those games. But the Islanders found themselves on the losing end of a 4-3 decision at home against the Sabres on Saturday despite nearly tripling the shot output of Buffalo.

While the Islanders are still trying to break out of their current funk, they now have key players back in the lineup, including defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky and forward Josh Bailey, who both made their season debuts Saturday.

"It was a good start. Hopefully I can build off it," Bailey told newyorkislanders.com Saturday. "Vish played a great game as well. You look at him and you can see he’s definitely going to help our squad."

Who's hot: Ward is unbeaten over his last three games for the Hurricanes with 114 total saves over that span. … Captain John Tavares has five points (4g, 1a) in his last five games for the Islanders.

Injury report: Besides a long-term injury to forward Tuomo Ruutu (hip), the Hurricanes are fully healthy. … With Bailey and Visnovsky back in the lineup, the Islanders expect to be operating with a full team Monday.