Isles Falter Against Blues

This afternoon, your New York Islanders will face the St. Louis Blues.  The organization will honor Mr. Islander, Bob Nystrom.  Nystrom said of the day's event, "It's moving and it will bring back some great memories".  Jaroslav Halak will not need any motivation to play his former team & show them that they made a mistake in trading him last season.  Another win today would increase the franchise winning record that Halak now holds at 11 straight games.  Ryan Pulock (13pts in 20 AHL games) may join Griffin Reinhart on an Isles blue line that has had a rough few days after Johnny Boychuk & Lubo Visnovsky were placed on IR.  Travis Hamonic (upper body) was also placed on the team's IR list retroactive to 12/2. 

Ken Hitchcock on playing the Islanders, "They took their lumps and allowed guys to grow. Now the rest of us are taking our lumps from them."

 

Forwards:  Kulemin-Tavares-Okposo, Grabner-Nielsen-Grabovski, Lee-Nelson-Strome, Martin-Cizikas-Clutterbuck.

Defensive Pairings:  Leddy-Donovan, de Haan-Reinhart, Hickey-Strait. 

Pulock skated in warm-ups as the 7th D & has been scratched.  He has been back to Bridgeport. Staple says that means Visnovsky will most likely be ready for Tuesday.

Jaroslav Halak is in net with Chad Johnson in the back up role.

 

In the first period, the Lee, Nelson, Strome line opens play with some solid pressure in the Blues' zone & Halak with a few good saves early in the game.  The Islanders seem to be dialed in so far.  Isles go to the PP, but fail to generate much until their next one a few seconds later.  Frans Nielsen (Okposo & Nelson) scores his 6th of the season to give the Isles a 1-0 lead.  Isles are back to the man advantage for third time in the last five minutes.  Nothing doing that time.  Jaroslav Halak takes a stinger off a Tarasenko shot, but looks ok.  Isles go to the PK.  Halak has been good, especially on that PK. Isles are doing some aggressive things on defense & it's working so far.  Great save by Allen on Grabner's rebound shot.  Isles capitalize on a Blues turnover & Ryan Strome comes off the bench to make it 2-0 Islanders.  Michael Grabner gets another big rebound, but buries this one.  3-0 Islanders.  Isles ahead, 12-10 in shots and were 1/3 on the PP, 1/1 on the PK.  New York did a great job jumping all over the usually mistake free Blues in that period.  Lets see what happens in the second.

The second period begins with Martin Brodeur in the net for St. Louis to a chant of," Marty, Marty, Marty," before he even faces a shot.  Isles back to the PK off an Ott dive & Stastny gets St. Louis on the board. 3-1 Isles.  Berglund makes it 3-2 off a nice deflection in front.  Jack Capuano calls a timeout to rally the troops.  Blues are out working & out shooting the Isles 6-0 to this point.  Anders Lee lays out Gunnarsson trying to set the tone for the second half.  I don't think he went for the head as much as Gunnarsson was low as he skated to the puck.  Need to keep your head up there.  Isles back to the PP, but fail to generate much.  deHaan called for holding & Isles to the PK again.  Shattenkirk gets the equalizer on the PP.  3-3 half way through the second.  The Islanders need to get back to passing the puck and play a more disciplined, physical game.  Isles somehow return to the PP as Donovan loses his edge.  John Tavares scores on the PP to give the Isles back the lead at 4-3 going into the second intermission.  Isles get lead back on iffy PP call. They need to regroup & refocus for the third, playing a physical, but controlled game.  They got away from what they did right in the first. 

The Isles go to the PK again after just a few minutes into the third period.  Thomas Hickey stands up Tarasenko, but Tarasenko follow through hits Cizikas.  Zeeker looks fine.  Isles do a better job on the kill, but get tested against another kill soon afterwards.  Oshie ties the game on the Blues PP, 4-4.  First time Isles have allowed 3 PP goals in a game.  Isles need to do better job of clearing the puck man down.  Casey Cizikas heads to dressing room.  A scrum ensues to the left of Brodeur's net, JT thinks the puck is in but the Official waves it off. After a review, no goal.  There was no conclusive video evidence to refute the call on the ice.  After, Halak is slow on the lateral move and Stastny left alone in front of the net combine to a 5-4 St. Louis lead with under 6 minutes remaining.  Brian Strait has had a bad game today on defense.  Tarasenko burns the Isles again on a bad change to grab a 6-4 lead with less than 3 minutes remaining.  Islanders look lost in the third period.  Halak (34/40 with a .850 Sv%) goes to the bench in the final minute to no avail.  The Isles were 2/5 on the PP and 2/5 on the PK. 

Eric Hornick, "As Howie just mentioned, Isles looking to do something they've never done - be 1st in NHL to 20 wins."  When the Isles had a 3-0 lead after the first, that was a probable outcome.  But after seeing them outshot 30-15 in the second & third periods, it was obvious that would not happen.  They needed to put more shots on the oppositions net and create traffic in front to mount a real comeback.  Brodeur ended up being good enough in relief behind a resurgent Blues team that eventually woke up and turned the tables on the Islanders.  It was definitely one of the worst loses of the season, especially because they surrendered a 3-0 lead, came back to force the tie, then gave up the lead again.  It was a tough one to take, but perhaps another footnote in the teams level of maturity.  It was their poor defensive play, lack of discipline and a scattered attack in the offensive zone spelled doom for the Isles today. 

There were a few scapegoats in the game, but this was clearly a team loss.  The Blues are a good team that simply took it to the Islanders after being embarrassed in the first period.  The season is hardly in jeopardy.

 

 

Rematch is on Thursday.

 

Isles Notes:

 

Josh Bailey & Cory Conacher were scratches for today's game.


The Isles face the Wild @8pm on Tuesday, 12/9 in Minnesota.