Al Arbour Night - Isles Try to Add One to the Legend
November 3rd, 2007 by murph
[10:00 1st Period] Halfway through the first period here on Al Arbour night, the Isles are picking up where the left off Thursday night, skating hard and taking the play to the Penguins. Isles outshooting the flightless waterfowls 7-2 so far but Team Crosby just picked up a pretty weak interference call on Gervais for the the game’s first powerplay.
[12:06 1st Period] Islanders-Killer Ryan Malone bangs in a rebound to put the Penguins up 1-0. Lame. Should have never been a powerplay in the first place. Malone had two hat-tricks (out of 16 total goals) vs. the Islanders last season.
[16:46 1st Period] Who’s reffing this game…Mario Lemieux? Witt decks Malkin at center ice, breaking up a head-man pass but gets called for interference. Isles kill that Penguins powerplay and with 36 seconds left, it looks like they’ll enter the first intermission down 1-0.
End of one, good crowd at the Coliseum but I’m not sure if it’s a sellout. Might get announced as one but I’d say there’s 15,000+ change here tonight. 300’s are pretty packed but I see sections of empty seasons in the 100/200’s. Al Arbour “1500″ banners are hung around the Coliseum and will probably be available on Ebay tomorrow morning. When the Isles announced this, Coach Arbour said he didn’t want a lot of pregame fanfare. The Isles respected that and kept it simple with Bill Torrey and Scotty Bowman dropping the ceremonial faceoff before the game. Isles are wearing their white jerseys tonight, which used to be the old home jerseys back in Arbour’s days. They’ve announced on the PA that there is a post-game ceremony to raise a new banner for Coach Arbour.
Immediately after the game, Arbour will be joined on the Coliseum ice by his wife Claire, the Arbour family, Ted Nolan, the 2007-08 Islanders and several of Al’s former players as the franchise raises a new banner commemorating his 1,500th game as the head coach of the Islanders.
[1:48 2nd Period] Pens score one off the inside crossbar but no one in charge sees it. Play continues for another minute and a half before there’s a whistle. Toronto calls on the Batphone and after the review the Isles are in a 2-0 hole. Pens have also taken the lead in shots 14-12. Penguins’ 2nd goal was scored by rookie Tyler Kennedy, his first career NHL goal.
[8:20 2nd Period] Isles picking up the pace and buzzing now. Hunter bangs in a rebound for his second goal in as many games, making it 2-1. Next shift his line is at it again as Marc-Andre Fluery makes a big save on a Sillinger one-timer and then a Hunter wrist shot.
[13:56 2nd Period] Wow. Things just got crazy here - Isles get a 4 on 1 rush, I think it went missed net-save-missed net. Terrible. The Pens come down on a rush and Crosby high sticks DiPietro under the mask. Refs call goalie interference at first, then DiPietro heads off ice to be attended to. The refs call DP back to the ice to see if he’s cut - he is, so they change it to a double-minor high stick. Crowd (and Jumbotron) starts the DP chant as he walks back up out to the rink, only to have him turn around and head back in the dressing room to be attended to. Probably needs a couple of stitches. Doobie’s in for now.
[18:59 2nd Period] Isles have plenty of chances on the four minute powerplay but can’t beat Fluery. Sid the Kid is now public enemy #1 around here, the home crowd is booing him everytime he touches the puck.
[End 2nd Period] End of two, Isles after a slow start outshoot the Pens 18-11 in the period as the teams exchange goals. Isles did a really cool thing between the 1st/2nd - they showed and introduced all of their 15+ year season ticket holders on the Jumbotron. The season ticket holders are in hallway outside the locker room. A very nice gesture for the most die-hard of the die-hards. Just now they showed Eddie Westfall on the Jumbotron, he’s here too.
[20:00 3rd Period] Start of the third…Doobie leads the troops out onto the ice. No sign of DiPietro.
[3:56 3rd Period] Doobie makes 2 huge saves on Malone standing on his doorstep.
[5:30 3rd Period] Sutton clears the puck out of the Islanders zone which somehow springs Vasicek on a bad angle breakaway. He pulls up, feeds it across to Satan who ties the game. Fluery got a piece of it, but not enough. 30 seconds later…Crosby rings one off the post behind Doobie. Whew!
[17:19 3rd Period] Shot from the point from Bergeron, save Fluery but he puts the rebound right onto Satan’s stick for the go-ahead goal. Less than 2 minutes away from Coach Arbour’s 740th win.
