Islanders Black N' Blued In St. Louis

Forwards: Moulson-Tavares-Okposo; Grabner-Nielsen-Parenteau; Martin-Bailey-Rolston; Pandolfo-Reasoner-Niederreiter.

Defensemen: Streit-Wishart; Ness-MacDonald; Eaton-Jurcina.

Nabokov was supposed to be in net tonight, but has flu like symptoms, so Al Montoya will get the start.

Ty Wishart will see his first NHL action of the season with the Isles tonight in St. Louis, in for Steve Staios who has the stomach flu.

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After starting off with a sweet Frans Nielsen goal, your New York Islanders are getting outworked and once again unable to come up with a defensive game plan to move bodies from in front of their net.  Al Montoya looks shaky with no back up on the bench due to Evgeni Nabokov’s bout of the flu that sidelined the starter for tonight’s contest prior to game time.  Montoya seems unsettled ever since coming back from the concussion he suffered on December 21^st as a result of being run over by Winnipeg’s Evander Kane’s while trying to make a play in his crease.

St. Louis scored 5 unanswered goals on 17 shots through the second period and have the Islanders frustrated and confused.  Nothing seems to be going their way against a Blues team that holds the 4^th place spot in the West with an impressive record of 35-15-7.  A sloppy effort is putting the Isles into man down situations and causing them to attempt desperate plays, despite starting to shoot more on St. Louis’ Brian Elliot who looks like a different goalie from the first 5 minutes of the contest.  Elliot finished with 26 saves on 27 shots and a .963 Sv%.  Montoya was 21 of 26 with a .808 Sv%.

The Islanders weakness on offensive proficiency was really evident again in the game.  St. Louis played a tight game and forced the Islanders to try and stop the rush.  New York wasn’t able to do so and made some mistakes in the process.  Too many second and third rebounds resulted in goals.   Islanders lose 5-1 and fall to 24-25-8 and 8 points out of a playoff spot. 

The defense has to be accountable against a good team like this and their inefficiency showed tonight. 

** I will be away this weekend so I’ll try and post an update for the game against the Hurricanes as soon as I can get to it. On Monday, I’ll be covering the President’s day matinee vs the Ottawa Senators at 1 p.m. for Dee Karl’s Islanders Blogbox, NY Islanders 7^th Woman’s blog. Thanks to Dee for the shout!


Isles Notes:

Dee Karl reports that the Islanders lead the NHL with 971 blocked shots coming into tonight’s game and Andrew MacDonald owns 126 of those. 

Brian Compton mentions the Islanders are now 8 points behind Toronto with 2 games in hand. 

Katie Strang points out that with a goal in the 3-1 win vs. WPG, Matt Moulson has put together three straight seasons of 25 goals or more.

P.A. Parenteau and his agent Allan Walsh say the focus should be on making the playoffs with the Islanders.  Contact talks can wait.

Eric Hornick reports that Piere Turgeon’s son, Dominic Turgeon just signed in Portland of the WHL where Travis Green is the asst GM/ asst coach.

@BDGallof's take on the aftermath of the Legislature’s meeting. http://cbsloc.al/vZjSVy