Islanders head to Philly with half of a half of a lineup

The Islanders come to town tonight for the first of two games this evening. The other is in Saskatoon.

Seriously.

In a baseball-like move that's not seen often in hockey, the already-depleted Islanders will split their squad tonight, sending one group to the WFC to take on the Flyers and another group to Western Canada to take on the Calgary Flames.

According to Lighthouse Hockey, the Saskatoon game is going to be the more interesting game from an Isles perspective. Head coach Scott Gordon will be making the trip with that group, which comprises of guys like John Tavares, Nino Niederreiter and other players that the head coach really wants to take a look at in hopes that they could make the team.

The "Philadelphia group," as it's been called by Chris Botta at Islanders Point Blank, is basically the team's B group. Matt Moulson, Frans Nielsen, Jack Hillen, Dean McAmmond, Jed Ortmayer are probably the only position players who's names you're going to recognize. Former Phantom Krys Kolanos will be here too.

Other than that, the Islanders have nobody, and this comes on top of the mounting injuries they've suffered this camp. First, Olympian Mark Streit went down with an injury suffered in practice last week. He'll miss six months. Then, earlier this week, Kyle Okposo learned he'll need shoulder surgery. He'll miss up to three months with a torn labrum.

As a result of this bare Isles lineup, NHL Network has dropped the game from its lineup tonight, opting to show Ottawa and Toronto instead. Local viewers can still watch the game on The Comcast Network.

After the jump, take a full look at the group heading to Philadelphia tonight to take on the Flyers.

The Isles lineup tonight is not completely set as a few players on this list will be scratched. List comes courtesy of Botta.

Goal: Dwayne Roloson, Manny Legace (who just signed a PTO with the club)

Defensemen: (will need to scratch one): Anders Eriksson, Bruno Gervais, Travis Hamonic (said to be ok), Jack Hillen, Mark Katic, Anton Klementyev, Dustin Kohn, Dylan Reese

Forwards: Justin DiBenedetto, Michael Haley,  Jesse Joensuu, Krys Kolanos, Tomas Marcinko, Dean McAmmond, Matt Moulson, Frans Nielsen, Jed Ortmeyer, Tony Romano, Jeremy Yablonski

As for the Flyers lineup, we'll have that later tonight when our game thread goes up around 6 PM. We're covering the game from the WFC tonight.