Islanders Pay The Price

Forwards: Moulson-Tavares-Okposo; Grabner-Nielsen-Parenteau; Martin-Bailey-Rakhshani; Niederreiter-Pandolfo-Wallace.

Defensemen: Streit-Staios; Jurcina-MacDonald; Eaton-Ness

Nabokov gets the start in net

Milan Jurcina returns to the line up.  Aaron Ness will get his first game at home as an Islander.

DiPietro out for 10 weeks with sports hernia/knee swelling.  Mark Katic sShoulder), Mike Mottau (concussion) and Marty Reasoner (broken hand) are out indefinitely or with no timetable for their return.

The Islanders lead the NHL with 907 blocked shots coming into tonight’s game.

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The Montreal Canadiens came to town in a similar scenario as their hosts.  Your New York Islanders with a record of 22-22-8 and Montreal at 21-24-9 know the importance of each and every game left in the season. 

Arthur Staple reported that the Isles have allowed a goal on the first shot against for the 11^th time in 53 games tonight, just 1:23 into the first period.  They were 2-6-2 when doing so previously.  The Islanders play tonight reminded me of Tuesdays’ game against the Flyers, loose and scattered.  They had some good chances develop as time went on, but failed to capitalize on chances with all four lines.

There was some good effort to start the second period on a power play opportunity.  Shots were 16-10 Islanders, 3 minutes into the period.   Montreal buzzed and Pacioretty scored again.  Price was in the zone and the Isles continued to fight, but could only manage outside shots and came up short.  Montreal controled play, capitalized on New York’s mistakes and limited the isles offensively as 2^nd period ended.  Eric Hornick reported the Islanders scoreless streak was at 152:43 to that point.

In the Third period, Tim Wallace and Matt Martin continued to play physical.  Brian Compton reported that Head Coach, Jack Capuano had Parenteau back on top line with Tavares and Moulson.  And Gomez scored with his first goal this season and his first in over a year (2/5/11).  So glad it could come against the Isles (sarcasm).  Montreal lead 3-0 at the time.  Islanders scoreless streak was up to 163.11 at the time so far and they had difficulty getting shots on net.  Would they be shut out for the 9^th time this season? 

The Islanders continued to battle and Matt Moulson scored a cherry picker goal from out of mid air.  It ended a scoring drought of over 172 minutes.  Evgeni Nabokov was pulled for an extra attacker, and just like that, Isles scored again.  Streit brought it to within 1.  Isles scored 2 goals in 48 seconds with the score, 3-2 Canadiens late in the third period.  The Islanders continued to buzz, but time expired. 

Officials missed an icing call in the final seconds of the game that could have given New York another face off in the Montreal zone with Nabokov pulled.  But instead, Pacioretty made it a 3 goal game with an empty net goal at the buzzer with just 1/10 of a second remaining.

The Islanders are under .500 again at 22-23-8, losing 4-2 to Montreal.  Its hard to keep playing from behind while you spot the opponent a multiple goal cushion, but it must be said that New York did not show any signs of quit and fought their way back into the game.  They had Montreal reeling, but just ran out of time.  Their record when giving up the first goal is now 2-7-2.

Give the credit to Carey Price (31 saves, .939 Sv%) and Max Pacioretty with his first career hat-trick.  Montreal move up and Isles move down in the standings, other games in progress.