Last night, your New York Islanders were in
Vancouver to face the Canucks in an attempt to put the lack luster effort in
Edmonton behind them and get another win on their west coast swing. They would have to do so without the services
of Lubo Visnovsky (upper body to IR from 1/4) and Josh Bailey (scratch), but
would see Matt Donovan in for Lubo & Michael Grabner return from the IR
list. Donovan gets another chance to
make an impact the way Thomas Hickey has done in a bid to make the Islanders as
a regular while Michael Grabner returns with a chance to play with JT & KO. Grabner must feel pressure to try and carve
out a niche for himself on a much improved Isles squad and become a relevant
piece of the machine.
Forwards:
Grabner-Tavares-Okposo,
Lee-Nielsen-Strome, Grabovski-Nelson-Kulemin, Martin-Cizikas-Clutterbuck.
Defensive Pairings: Leddy-Boychuk, de Haan-Hamonic, Hickey-Donovan.
Jaroslav Halak in net
with Chad Johnson backing up.
The Isles started the
game very flat and struggled to find a rhythm behind a good defensive effort by
Jaro Halak. Matt Martin would generate a
little jump & get New York a 1-0 lead around the half way mark of the first
off a nice feed from Travis Hamonic. It
was Martin’s 5th goal of the season.
A few minutes later, Stanton would add one for VAN by taking a terrible
Brock Nelson drop pass and going behind Donovan & off a bad defensive read by Hickey. Vancouver
would add two more goals in second from Bonino & Vey to take a 3-1 lead
into the third period. Thomas Hickey was
victimized on the other two Vancouver goals as well and had a rough night on
defense. The Isles would add a goal to
bring the score within 1 off a Mikhail Grabovski (Okposo) one-timer late in the
period, but that would be it for the Islanders who would fall to the Canucks by
the score of 3-2. Matt Martin was named
2nd star of the game.
The Isles were physical
with 36 hits in the game and outshot Vancouver by a 23-20 margin, but saw the
Canucks block 26 shots on their net. On
special teams, the PP was an dismal 0/3 while the PK stayed true, going 2/2 on
the night. Halak made 17 saves & generated an .850 Sv% in the loss. New
York was good in the face-off circle with a 35-20 advantage, but would turn the
puck over enough to play from behind for much of the game. Turnovers were the story of the game and
mistakes, the tale of the last two. They
negated offensive rushes and forced the Isles back into their own zone on
several occasions. It was the second such
sloppy game for the Isles and as a result, many players and fans were very disappointed
in the loss. While I think the fan reactions
was a little much, the concern for the Islanders essentially giving both of
their last two games away has merit. All
3 Vancouver goals came off miscues by the Islanders. Several Islanders made no excuses for the
loss and took ownership on their mistakes.
Hickey said, "There's got to be a higher standard of
play and it starts with myself," while Okposo said “We weren’t sharp, we
didn’t execute.” The Isles will have
time to regroup in the coming days.
The Islanders will face
the Devils in New Jersey on Friday, Blue Jackets in Columbus on Saturday and
visit MSG to face the rival Rangers the following Tuesday night. Let’s hope they right the ship and do it
quickly in the next three divisional games.
Isles Notes:
Sorokin takes silver at 2015 WJC. Read about
all the Isles prospects at the WJC here.
Sound Tigers Notes:
Ryan Pulock was named to the AHL All-Star
team.
Griffin Reinhart practices for 2nd
straight day and Ryan Pulock met with Doctors per Connecticut Post.
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