Archive for the 'Florida Panthers' Category
And so it goes. Another game, another loss for the Islanders. Last night, the Panthers were the better team and skated to a 4-2 victory over an injury-plagued Islanders team that is showing the physical, emotional, and mental wear and tear of an up and down season.
The loss kept the Isles entrenched in lowly 13th place, eight points behind the Flyers for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. It also moved the Islanders under the .500 mark for just the second time this season.
The team that had started the season out so well surprising almost everyone, that was ranked #8 on ESPN’s Power Rankings the sixth week of the season, that was in the Top Eight teams in the East for most of the year, is bottoming out at the worst possible time. The Isles have lost six of seven. Coach Ted and Rick DiPietro might not be getting along. Injuries are piling up.
The Isles certainly haven’t quit but I don’t think they believe any more either. Ten games to go, eight points out, they know the deal.
The Flyers downed the Isles 4-1 yesterday. Another bad loss to a team serving as a roadblock to a playoff spot for the OrangeAndBlue. The loss puts the Islanders seven points back of Philly for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The Islanders now reside in 12th place out of 15 teams in the East.
They have 12 games to play. How likely is it a team can make up seven points in just 12 games? Not bloody likely. Even if the Islanders go 9-3, which would qualify as their best 12-game stretch of the season, the Flyers, who have 13 games left, would have to go 5-8. That would leave the Islanders with 89 points and the Flyers with 88. The Flyers would own any tiebreaker if the teams ended the season with the same amount of points, as they have dominated the season series winning five of six contests.
The two teams play each other two more times - Sunday, March 23 at Philadelphia and Saturday, March 29 at the Old Barn. If the Isles have any chance of grabbing that last seed, they need to win both games in regulation. There’s no other way. They simply cannot afford to lose any more ground to the Flyers.
To make the uphill climb even steeper, using the 9-3 scenario for the Islanders’ last 12 games, the team would still need Buffalo, Washington, and Florida to stumble. If the Isles finish with 89 points, they would need Buffalo to finish no better than 7-6 (for 88 points), Washington no better than 7-5 and Florida no better than 7-4. There’s a good chance that can happen but when you’re talking about the need for three teams to be no better than mediocre, one team, the Flyers, to be pretty bad, and the Islanders to be pretty damn awesome, the odds don’t look good. I wouldn’t take that bet. Would you?
The good thing is the Islanders are saying all the right things. Captain Bill Guerin told Newsday after yesterday’s loss “We’re making it a lot harder on ourselves. Is there enough time? Not a lot, but there’s time.”
Technically, he’s right. But it’s almost last call. No time to waste.
After a lost weekend at the Coliseum in which the Isles scored one lousy goal, the team finds itself five points behind the Flyers for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The Islanders, who are currently in tenth place, have 15 games left, one less than Philly and ninth place Buffalo. The Sabres have 71 points, two more than the Islanders.
It doesn’t look good but the lights ain’t out yet. But man did the Islanders lay an egg this past weeked or what? First, they fell to the Flyers 4-1, a game which was pretty much sealed when the Isles gave up yet another short-handed goal. Then on Sunday, after a pretty awesome ceremony marking the “Core of the Four,” the Isles went out and failed to put one of their 53 shots past backup Panther keeper Craig Anderson.
Here’s what some Islanders had to say after the game.
“I looked up at the scoreboard and I turned to Wade [Dubielewicz] and said, ‘I can’t believe we had 52 shots,” newest Islander Rob Davison told Newsday. Asked whether Davison had ever been on a team to register 52 shots that failed to win, he said “Absolutely not.”
Wait a minute, my bad. Davision didn’t say that after yesterday’s game. He said that after the Islanders pulled almost the same stunt and lost to the Penguins just last week after recording 52 shots. At least they scored two goals in that game. Yesterday - nada. 53 shots and no goals and a big loss. I hope this freak occurence ends here. One time is bizarre. Two is suspicious. Any more and we have a trend. The Islanders don’t need bad trends right now. They need goals and points in the standings.
For the season, the Islanders are tied with Columbus for the second-fewest goals in the league with 164. The Blues have the fewest with 161. The Islanders and the Blue Jackets share the worst goals-per-game ratios in the league, however, averaging just 2.44 tallies. The Blues average 2.47. If the season ended today, none of the three would make the playoffs. By contrast, Ottawa leads the league with 216 goals in 66 contests - a 3.27 goals-per-game average. On paper it doesn’t seem like such a huge difference but it is.
The Isles’ lack of scoring has been a major storyline all year. We’re not breaking any new ground but the fact remains, as we’ve said and as many others have said, this team isn’t going to win consistently until a little more firepower can be had. Maybe I need to revise that statement, and exchange “scoring’ for “firepower” because the shots have been coming lately. Shots are great. The Islanders need goals.
They needed four points over the weekend. They came away with zero. The clock is ticking.
Next up, a home-and-home series against the Rangers starting tomorrow night.
So Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro returned to the crease last night after missing 3 games with a knee injury, in a tough 4-3 Islander OT loss. I missed the game because my men’s league team was busy getting shellacked 6-0. Just a bad, bad night on the ice in Long Island.
The big story of the night was DP’s new goalie pads though. After the game, that’s all the press wanted to talk about. Apparently, Rick and the Islanders thought they had league approval on them but the NHL called the Isles after the first period and made him switch back to his older pads. There’s a lot of “he said”, “she said” going on, but the bottom line is DP faces a possible 2-game suspension for wearing white after Labor Day illegal equipment.
All of this could have been avoided if the NHL would just read Isles’ PR Corey Witt’s blog everyday. Corey tipped us off to the new pads early Thursday afternoon, so he knew, I knew, a bunch of you readers knew, but nobody told Lord Bettman. “Throw me a frickin’ bone here. I’m the boss…need the info” Bettman reportedly said after the game.
Highlights below, and we’ll update you on DP’s status for the Isles 5-game road trip as soon as we find out anything.
I’ve had the luck and/or misfortune of being stuck down in Florida for work for the past three weeks. The good news was I was able to enjoy 85 degree weather and a nice ocean breeze in between 12-hour stints at the office. The bad news is I had to eat at the crummy hotel buffet every morning and didn’t get to see one single Islanders game.
In all, I was gone for 19 days. The amazing thing is, I missed just THREE Islander games! That’s as many games as my beloved Jets managed to play (and lose). What gives? You can look at it two ways - the extra time between games gave the squad more rest and time to practice or the extra time has prevented the team from getting into a groove. I’m going with the latter. Hockey players are conditioned to play three games a week. As we see every Spring when playoffs come around, a tight schedule with a lot of games can benefit a team. Sure, they need time to recurperate from the ravages of the game, but averaging a week between contests isn’t going to benefit one single Islander. And it also might come back to haunt the Isles down the road, when suddenly they are playing a tight schedule and fighting for a playoff spot (fingers crossed) and their competition has a critical night off.
Right now, with just nine games under their belt, including just three since Oct. 12, it’s hard to tell what kind of team the Islanders have. The next couple of weeks should give us a clearer indiction of this squad’s ability and more insight on its strengths and weaknesses. Starting tonight, the Isles play three games in five days and a total of 14 games in 30 days for the month of November, followed with 15 in December, their busiest month.
Some random thoughts while traveling in South Florida:
I saw two Florida Panthers jerseys in and around the Hollywood, Fla. area. Both guys were coming out of different liquor stores on differnet weekdays in broad daylight. Understandable. The Panthers are 4-7 and have scored just 27 goals.
We got lunch at this joint called Chicken Kitchen a few times. I’m totally on board with this place. They basically sell cut up grilled chicken (kind of like you’d get in a fajita or chicken taco) and a bunch of different sauces. The salsa is great. Some chicken and salsa over yellow rice and I was set.
As a Jet fan, I have an inherent dislike for Miami Dolphins fans (but I put that aside for my cousin, that s.o.b) but that may no longer be a problem. You see, even in the heart of Dolphin country, the Dol-Fans seem to be a dying breed. A group of us were getting lunch in a local sports bar and grill last Sunday. There were about 10 televisions in and around the bar. One was tuned to the Giants-Dolphins game. One. A few others were on bowling. You gotta be kidding me. I know the Dolphins are terrible (after all, the Jets beat them for their lone win) but come on. You can’t leave your team hanging like that. Still, I know the Dol-Fan will never be extinct. I have no doubt all the fans will come back the next time the Dolphins look good again. Sunshine fans in the Sunshine state.
Looking forward to Al Arbour Night this Saturday. Get a ticket and come honor big guy.
And lastly, Happy Halloween.
