Islanders G DiPietro sits again

Oct 11, 2008 - 11:12 PM UNIONDALE, New York (Ticker) -- Rick DiPietro's season debut will have to wait a little longer.

For the second straight night, DiPietro will watch from the bench as his New York Islanders host the St. Louis Blues on Saturday due to swelling and fluid around his left knee.

Joey MacDonald will start in net for the Islanders.

The first overall pick in the 2000 draft, DiPietro still is recovering from offseason knee surgery. He appeared in just one preseason game and sat out New York's season-opening loss to the New Jersey Devils on Friday.

"Coming off an injury, we want to make sure that he's given the opportunity to get himself back into shape," Islanders coach Scott Gordon told the team's web site after Friday's setback. "To be honest with you, he hasn't had a lot of practice time and we're monitoring his injury so that we're not forcing the issue right away. We just felt that we'd give him another day. ... Right now, we're just going day to day."

Last season, the 27-year-old DiPietro posted a 26-28-7 record with three shutouts and a 2.82 goals-against average in 63 games while making his first trip to the All-Star Game. However, he missed the latter portion of the campaign due to a hip ailment that required surgery.

A native of Massachusetts who represented the United States at the 2006 Winter Olympics, DiPietro owns a career mark of 116-109-29 with 14 shutouts and a 2.78 GAA in 268 games.