Tonight, your New York Islanders are in Ottawa to face the
Senators for game 2 of their home-at-home series. Former Sens Captain,
Daniel Alfredsson will take the pre-game skate with the team after announcing
his retirement from the NHL. The Sens should be able to garner some
inspiration from the ceremonies, especially after losing to the Isles in O.T. a couple
of days ago at the NVMC. The Islanders shouldn't need any inspiration to
continue their quest to pile up the points in their divisional & conference
standings. Michael Grabner has been activated from IR &
Griffin Reinhart has been recalled on an emergency basis from the BST.
Travis Hamonic (upper body) & Cal Clutterbuck (lower body) have been listed
as day-to-day, Boychuk and Visnovsky placed on IR. Josh Bailey was
reported to be on a maintenance day today, but Staple
believes, "Bailey took a shot off his foot/ankle on Tuesday, tested it
this AM and couldn't go." Tonight
will be a big test for the patchwork Isles defense tonight. And an even bigger one for Halak. Ready?
Forwards:
Kulemin-Tavares-Okposo, Grabner-Nielsen-Grabovski, Lee-Nelson-Strome,
Martin-Cizikas-Conacher.
Defensive pairings:
Leddy-Donovan, de Haan-Reinhart, Hickey-Strait.
Jaroslav Halak is in net with Chad Johnson backing up.
In the first period, the Isles came out generating some good
chances early. Michael Grabner is involved
in an odd man rush and inadvertently runs into Anderson. Isles to the PK. When an Isles goaltender is run over in a
similar scenario, the "offending" player is always said to be playing hard. Weak call
on Grabner. Isles to the PP as de Hann
draws the advantage. Isles with good
movement on the PP, but misfire or fan on their shots. Both teams with some ugly plays in the period and the Isles with
a 5-4 shot advantage. Something to
build on in the second.
The second period is more of the same. A little slow with some good chances on both
sides. Kulemin draws a penalty to put
the Isles on their second PP of the game.
Isles get good movement on the man advantage & Brock Nelson (Nielsen
& Leddy) is left alone in front and puts it over Anderson for his team
leading 12th goal of the year, 1-0 Isles.
Cory Conancher comes close seconds after. Isles to the PK off a cross-check by Nelson. Strait called for a questionable high stick
to give the Sens a 5 on 3 for 1:10.
Zibanejad scores to tie the score at 1-1. Remaining PK time expires as Cizikas plays without his stick while al over Karlsson. Sens come close again &
hit the post behind Halak. Neil levels
Brock Nelson with a clean hit near the end of the period. The second ends with the Isles generating
more in the offensive zone, out shooting Ottawa 13-5.
The third is even slower paced than the
previous two. Just after midway through the period, Casey Cizikas and Thomas Hickey
combine for a nice goal at the 13:33 mark, 2-1 New York. Isles go to the PP late at the 18:28 mark and Ottawa pulls
Anderson to keep their man power even on the ice. Capuano calls a time out with 16.9 seconds remaining to settle things down. Karlsson hits the post as time expires and throws his stick in frustration. Islanders win 2-1 and improve to an NHL
leading 19-7-0 with 38 pts. on the season.
New York completes their sweep of the Ottawa
Senators with the win tonight. The Isles were 1/2 on the PP and 2/3 on the PK. They
have won 8 of their last 9 & 13 of their last 15 and take sole possession
of first place with a Pens loss tonight.
Jaroslav Halak (19/20 with a .950Sv%) breaks Billy Smith's (10) franchise record with 11
straight wins (and counting) with a victory tonight. His patchwork defense limited the Sens in shots & blocked 22
that Halak didn't need to turn aside.
So defense wins championships, right? Well, Nick Leddy & Thomas Hickey were
very good for the Isles tonight. Griffin
Reinhart played an efficiently quiet game tonight in his first call up of the
year & Matt Donovan gave another quality effort. The defensive depth came up big in the win, especially when you consider the absence of 3 of
their top 6 D, like Boychuk, Visnovsky & Hamonic. Michael Grabner worked hard & looked to be getting back into his groove as the game went on. John Tavares was solid on both sides of the puck tonight. Brock Nelson has been consistent as one of the best players for the Isles this year & Casey Cizikas continues to make
noise. I have stated many times that I feel Ciziaks can be a Nystrom-esk player for this team and be a much bigger piece of this rebuild than many think.
Credit the Isles for staying with it and checking hard to get
themselves back into a very slow moving game when they had to. Jack Capuano is far from done, but he
continues to prove to all of his detractors (including me) that he may have
figured this NHL coaching thing out. He
has to be in consideration for one of the most improved coaches in the league
and as far as Garth Snow is concerned, his consideration for GM of the year should
be a lock with what he has already done coming into the season.
The Isles have been not only been resilient, but competent so far this
season. Their experience has finally
rounded out their game and as long as they keep playing their style, 1st in the
division wont be the only achievement they can unlock.
Isles face the Blues @ 1pm on Saturday.
Isles Notes:
Per Eric Hornick, "Visnovsky skated on his own
yesterday and today. Boychuk has not resumed skating yet. No update on
Hamonic."
"Only 1 Isles defenseman has had more OT goals than @thomas_hickey14 -- Roman Hamrlik had 3.
(Aucoin/Berard/Streit also had 2)."
Come out to the NVMC & donate blood to the Red
Cross on 12/20 & receive a voucher for two Isles tickets. More details can
be found here.
Per Brett Cyrgalis, "Dan Boyle: "I think the hockey
gods are not happy I signed here...I don't know if they're Islander fans or
Detroit fans..."
BTW, it's too early to quit on Chad Johnson. I know his
winning pedigree is shallow, but several fans wanted Halak out when he
struggled & wanted CJ as starter early in season.
Sound Tigers Notes:
The Isles have loaned Sebastian Collberg to Stockton for
some conditioning and more minutes.
The #ADevils have
signed former BST D, Mike Keenan to a PTO. Keenan, who was playing with @OrlandoHockey, has been assigned #37
No comments:
Post a Comment