Doug Weight returns to Edmonton, where he played nine NHL seasons, for the first time as New York Islanders coach. "It's always special to come back, it's always busy in a good way and I've seen a lot of friendly faces, people that I've known for a lot of years and mean a lot to me, as the city does," Weight said. "It's two special franchises to me, and as far as being a head coach, it's fun, it's exhilarating and the guys have responded unbelievably. We have great leaders and it's been a fun ride to this point." The Islanders are 13-6-3 under Weight and hold the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference, one point ahead of the Toronto Maple Leafs and two ahead of the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning. The Islanders are playing the seventh of a nine-game road trip. They gave up four goals in the first period of a 5-2 loss at the Calgary Flames on Sunday. "Hopefully, we have a better first period than we had in Calgary," captain John Tavares said. "Hopefully, we have a little more jump in our game. We're playing a young, skilled team that [is] playing with a lot of confidence and having a really good season thus far and in a position they haven't been in a while. You just want to, like any young team, try to make it hard on them, make them have to defend and make them work to get the puck. Just try to keep the game in front of us."
