Oliver Wahlstrom getting top-line opportunity for Islanders

The prophecy foretold for Oliver Wahlstrom in his draft year was that he would someday develop into a franchise power forward.

After all, he possessed the attributes that scouts look for in making such pronouncements: Size, a heavy, accurate shot, and reasonable skating ability.  

So with the Islanders’ 2022-23 season perhaps reaching a pivotal point, someday may have arrived. Wahlstrom, the 11th overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft, skated on the Islanders’ top line with Mathew Barzal and Josh Bailey during Tuesday morning’s practice at Northwell Health Ice Center in East Meadow. 

“It’s an opportunity for sure,” Wahlstrom said. 

One that comes at a time in which the Islanders will take on three of the league’s powerhouse teams while trying to right themselves. They will host the Rangers Wednesday at UBS Arena before heading to Carolina Friday and then returning home Saturday for a date with the defending Stanley Cup champion Avalanche.  

The Islanders enter the stretch having lost three straight, and are 2-4-0 overall. Over the course of the still-nascent season, they have scored 19 goals and allowed 18, a plus-one goal differential. However, 12 of their 19 goals were scored in back-to-back wins over Anaheim (7-1 on Oct. 15) and San Jose (5-2 on Oct. 18). And in the last three games, they have scored six goals in 180 minutes of game action.

There is more.

Anders Lee leads the team with four goals and seven points so far this season. Following Lee is Wahlstrom, who has three goals in five games; the quartet of Noah Dobson, Anthony Beauvillier, Robin Salo and Scott Mayfield are tied for third on the Islanders with two goals each; and the foursome of Matt Martin, Zach Parise, Ryan Pulock and Cal Clutterbuck round out the goal scorers with one apiece.

While neither Brock Nelson nor Mathew Barzal have scored a goal yet this season, both are tied for second on the team in points with six. They are followed by Dobson’s five and then Wahlstrom’s four before Beauvillier and Martin with three apiece.

All of which has caused Lane Lambert to experiment with line combinations. Bailey was scratched for Saturday’s 5-3 loss to the Lightning in Tampa, and Beauvillier was scratched for Sunday’s 3-2 loss to the Panthers in Sunrise.

Along with Wahlstrom and Bailey joining Barzal on the top line, Lambert reunited the second line of Lee, Nelson and Beauvilier, while creating a third line of Parise, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and Kyle Palmieri. The fourth line remained intact. 

There were no objections to Lambert’s experimentation.

“I don’t think anyone’s given him a reason to stick,” Barzal said. “I don’t think any line's really excelled to a point where they should be set in stone. That’s on us. He’s trying some different combinations and…that’s on us to break out and some line [finds] some chemistry and another line finds chemistry and then hopefully we can have four lines [going].”