The sight of captain Anders Lee trying to crawl off the ice and then being helped limping to the Islanders’ dressing room was disquieting to his teammates.
"You hate to see a guy go down," Brock Nelson said. "Especially Anders, our leader. He goes out, plays hard, battles every night and guys feed off him and look up to him. When you see he’s having a hard time, you hope it’s nothing serious."
Lee, playing in his 295th straight game, the eighth-longest active streak in the NHL and the third-longest in Islanders history, exited Thursday night’s 5-3 win over the Devils at Nassau Coliseum at 12:56 of the first period after Pavel Zacha fell over his extended right leg as he drove toward the Islanders’ net.