Poulin Solid & Isles Rebound

Your New York Islanders faced a Nashville Predators team in the middle of a long road trip, 2 game losing streak and starting Mazanec, a rookie goaltender.  The Islanders, winless in 4 needed to get a win tonight before facing the Kings & Detroit.  More importantly, Kevin Poulin was starting again after playing well in Montreal.  The Isles need to get something going defensively and on special teams to turn things around.  I am convinced the scoring will come with the talent they have.

 

Forwards:  Nelson-Tavares-Okposo; Grabner-Nielsen-Bailey; Bouchard-Regin-Clutterbuck; Martin-Cizikas-McDonald.

D-Pairings:  MacDonald-Hamonic; Hickey-Donovan; Ness-Carkner.

Kevin Poulin in net, Evgeni Nabokov on the bench.

By the time it was over, each team had 33 shots on net, but it was the Islanders that beat the Nashville Predators 3-1 in the NVMC tonight.  The Predators had a total of 24 blocked shots, but the Isles played a fast, puck moving game and did it with a physical  edge.  New York got tallies from John Tavares (Nielsen) PPG, Pierre Marc-Bouchard (Nielsen) and Kyle Okposo (Tavares & Nelson).  The Isles held that 3-0 shut-out from the 7 minute mark of the second until the final 5 minutes of the third before the Preds were able to score a goal.  The Isles played a close to perfect offensive and defensive based game with fore and back checking, especially in their own zone with a snarl.  Aside from an injury scare with JT, everything went well for New York.  Per Arthur Staple, "Tavares said he banged his hip falling into boards. Get treatment tomorrow, see how it feels. "I expect to be fine."

 

 

 

 

How good was Frans Nielsen tonight.  He is having a dream season, ranked 8th in the NHL for scoring (Tavares is 4th, Okposo, 10th).  Brock Nelson looks good so far in his brief time on the top line.  Aaron Ness had another strong game on defense for the Isles.  Kevin Poulin was named 1st star, played well, let up just 1 goal and had a .970 Sv% tonight.  He is also 1.75GAA .939Sv% in his last four games.  Per Daniel Friedman, "Capuano, on whether or not there's a changing of the guard in net on the horizon: "It's tough for me to say right now."

 

 

Isles Notes:

The mighty Eric Hornick says, "1st Isles reg win over Nsh since 4/11/02 in Nashville (Garth Snow in goal); 1st reg win vs Nsh @Coli since 11/7/00 (Election Night)."

 

 

Stadium Series Logo unveiled today.