Isles Day to Day: Johnny Boychuk Update

The New York Islanders breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday morning, as it was announced that defenseman Johnny Boychuk suffered a cut to his eyelid - and not his eye - during Tuesday's game against the Canadiens.
Islanders President and General Manager Lou Lamoriello announced that Boychuk's cut required 90 stitches to fix, but that the defenseman is okay, especially relative to how dire the situation looked on the ice.

"Johnny Boychuk is OK. There has been no damage to his eye," Lamoriello said. "Fortunately, it was just the eyelid that took 90 stitches to fix. A plastic surgeon took care of it. I don't want to exaggerate with the stitches because they do very small stitches, but there were 90 of them. He'll be fine. It's just a matter of time with the eye opening up and him feeling good."
Boychuk left the game in the third period after being cut by Artturi Lehkonen's skate in front of the net. It was a scary scene, as the defenseman immediately scrambled off the ice clutching his eye. Lamoriello said there is no time frame for Boychuk's return.

"His eye is closed because of the stitches," Lamoriello said. "There's no damage to the eye so there's no time frame of something healing. It's just when his eye opens up and he feels comfortable. When he has no headaches or anything. He was here first thing this morning."
The Islanders were relieved when they received a positive message from Boychuk in the team group text on Tuesday and wished their teammate a speedy recovery.
"It's a scary moment and obviously he's a close friend of all of ours," Josh Bailey said. "You never want to see that happen to anyone. We were all really worried about him. When something like that happens, it's really tough to keep playing after that. You're worried about him and we heard some news that it looked like he'd be okay on the bench and then after the game he sent a nice text to all of us. We're definitely happy to see him doing well."

Tuesday marked the second near-miss for Boychuk in the past two seasons. Boychuk also took a skate to the neck in a Feb. 28 game against the Toronto Maple Leafs last season.
Lamoriello said Noah Dobson will replace Boychuk in the lineup. Boychuk has 11 points (2G, 9A) in 64 games this season. Dobson has five points (1G, 4A) in 31 games this season. Lamoriello also said there was a chance Thomas Hickey could be recalled on an emergency basis.
"Noah Dobson will go in. Then, we might call up Hickey depending on the bumps and bruises are of other people on an emergency basis," Lamoriello said. "We have a couple of defenseman that are banged up so we might call him up just in case one of them is hurt, but there won't be any regular recalls."

UPDATE ON CASEY CIZIKAS:

Lamoriello also provided an update on Casey Cizikas, who has been out since Feb. 11 with a leg laceration. While Cizikas was initially projected to miss three-to-four weeks, Lamoriello said Cizikas has yet to resume skating.
"Casey is coming along as quickly as he can. He's walking. He's doing all of the things that he should be doing," Lamoriello said. "Hopefully, we'll get him on the ice within the next week or so. Then, its's just the process of him just getting his strength back. I would say he's at least another couple of weeks ago."
While the Islanders are 2-6-2 in 10 games without their identity line center, Lamoriello said he didn't want to use injuries as a crutch.
"I don't like to use excuses. Injuries are excuses, tiredness is an excuse," Lamoriello said. "You've got to compete in this game. You've got to overcome this. We're not unique in this type of situation we're in. We just have to get a feel good going right now and get a good game out of ourselves."

ISLANDERS WORKING THROUGH ADVERSITY:

The Islanders losses to Boston and Montreal feel eerily familiar to last season, when they suffered a pair of shutout losses to the Bruins and Canadiens on March 19 and 21.
The Isles responded to the two shutout losses by winning six of their final eight games of the season, and 10 of 12 games if you include their first-round sweep of the Pittsburgh Penguins. While Tuesday's loss was a frustrating one, captain Anders Lee said that it's an experience the Islanders can draw upon.
"You're going to go face adversity throughout the season. You don't want to face it now, but that's the reality of it. We pulled through last year because we stuck together and we had each other's backs," Lee said. "We continued to work and support each other and it's going to be no different this time. If we want to get out of this, that's how we move forward, we move forward as a team, as a room and we look forward to the next opportunity. That's what this game brings, a game almost every other night at this time of year. We can do our best to really fix everything tomorrow night."