Defensemen: Streit-Staios; Reese-MacDonald; Ness-Eaton.
Nabokov in goal for NYI. Stopped 40 of 41 shots last game vs. Flyers.
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The Philadelphia Flyers welcomed the Islanders to the Wells Fargo Center tonight in their 3rd meeting of 6 for the season. The Isles, 6-2-2 in their last 10 are 21-22-8 on the season with 50 pts, placing them 12th in Eastern conference. A win tonight would put them at an NHL .500.
The Flyers come out fast, playing the Islanders hard. K.O. rings a shot off the post and the Isles are returning fire and looking better defensively in this game early on. There is a good pace to the period for New York. The Isles manage a few odd-man rushes, but get out shot 10-7 in a scoreless first period.
In the second, Evgeni Nabokov continues to look good between the pipes for the Islanders on his 25 saves thus far in the game, 15 in the second period alone. He makes some incredible saves throughout the period. There is more back and forth between both teams. Dylan Reese looks like he hyper extends his knee trying to block a shot. Bad news if he and Hamonic are down with Jurcina, day to day.
Dylan Reese is not on bench to start the third period. Flyers pressing, vastly out shooting Isles 33-14 with 16:00 minutes to go in third. Aaron Ness making his presence felt on the offensive side of things. The physicality is amping up in the third. Arthur Staple mentions, “Rhett Rakhshani doubled over on bench. Took a Matt Carle shoulder to the head. Rakhshani already had a concussion in training camp.“ With little time left in the game, Isles being out shot 41-17. It’s all about Nabokov so far tonight.
We have O.T. Flyers dictating the play during extra time.
Game will go to a shoot out.
The Islanders owe Nabokov for this 45-18 save effort. Hopefully he gets rewarded.
Nielsen up first for the Islanders. Score!
Briere. No Goal
J.T. Score!
Simmonds. No Goal!
Islanders Win 1-0 ! Isles now have a 2 game winning streak vs the Flyers.
The team improves to 22-22-8, 11th place with 52 points in 11-5-2 run. Playoffs, a real possibility.
The team improves to 22-22-8, 11th place with 52 points in 11-5-2 run. Playoffs, a real possibility.
Josh Bailey and Matt Martin continue to impress me with their improved play. Bailey seems reborn and Martin keeps getting more fundamentally sound. Rhett Rakhshani also looks good with each game he plays, seems to be feeding off his line mates. With Travis Hamonic out with a severely broken nose, it was good to see defensemen, Aaron Ness looked strong in his first NHL appearance. It’s always important when a call up, especially one on an emergency basis, doesn’t look out of place during the game. Nabokov had another fantastic effort and needs to continue this play with Hamonic injured.
In other BIG news:
Bob McKenzie of TSN reports that the New York Islanders sign “The Great Dane,” Frans Nielsen to 4 year, $11M extension. Nielsen's extension has an annual cap hit of $2.75M, with year-by-year salary of $2M, $2.5M, $3M and $3.5M. Nielsen is one of the most under rated defensive forwards in the game today and excels at shootout goals with a 19 of 33 ratio, 57.6%, best in the NHL among active players. Nielsen was to become a free agent this summer. The Nielsen extension is another great core building move by GM, Garth Snow. Christian Arnold of @Isleshockeyblog says the deal will be made official tomorrow.
P.A. Parenteau will no doubt be next, regarding an extension announcement.
Isles Notes:
Eric Hornick reports the isles have been shorthanded 2x or less in each of last 5 gms -- in prior 24 years Isles had no stretch of 4 gms, let alone 5, short twice or less.
The Hockey News online’s poll:
If you could have only one of these four, who would it be?
John Tavares 39 %
Taylor Hall 9 %
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 24 %
Tyler Seguin 28 %
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