The Isles downed the Devils 5-2 last night, scoring three third period goals in route to their fourth straight win over New Jersey. Not sure why ths Isles have dominated the series lately, and it is just four games, but wins like these are huge. The Coliseum crowd recognized that and serenaded Brodeur and his crew with chants of “You can’t beat us!” That might be a bit cocky but I say enjoy it while it lasts.
Devils’ coach Brent Sutter is a bit fed up with the whole thing, charging his team with a lack of focus, telling reporters “I’m getting sick of it.” On the other side, Coach Ted Nolan said his guys delivered “a gutsy performance.”
You like fights? I thought you might. This game had a few, with Comrie, Sutton, and Guerin throwing down against Mike Mottau, Mike Rupp, and Dave Clarkson. Sutton played big last night. It was his goal, his first of the season, that put the Islanders ahead for good in the third period. The Islanders need to display toughness, especially against squads like Jersey. They did the job last night.
The Coliseum Heroes now stand at 19-16-2, with 40 pointgs. They’re still in last in the Atlantic but they are just five points behind division-leading New Jersey. They remain in a scrum for the final playoff spot with a whole slew of teams. It’s early, I know, but better in the mix now than not.
Wow. What a crazy game last night, lots of good and bad to talk about. Fan-Favorite (for the most part) Jason Blake returned to Long Island for the first time after signing a free-agent deal with Toronto last summer. Blake was a “love him or hate him” Islander - you either loved his speed and hustle, or you hated his tendency to hog the puck and occasional turnovers that came with it. We here at Islanders Army were strongly in the “love him” category, as evidenced by our top secret plan to clone Blake and dominate the NHL with five 40-goal scorers on the ice at once.
It was all business and $$$ that led to Blake leaving. He wanted a longer deal than what the Isles were offering and after a career year with 40 goals, he found someone else willing to give it to him. The Toronto Maple Leafs opened the checkbook for a 40-goal scorer for 5 years, and so far have 5 goals and 16 assists to show for it. The Isles showed their appreciation for the 6 years Blake played for us with a short pre-game video tribute.
I missed the first two periods and the Islanders “offensive explosion” of 3 goals in the first. Considering the difficulty the lsles have had scoring 3 goals in 60 minutes, 3 in the first 20 was quite the feat. The excitement of those goals quickly wore off at the start of the second period when Wade Dubielewicz came out of the tunnel and into the net in place of Rick DiPietro who apparently hurt his knee in warmups and wasn’t able to finish the game. DP is getting an MRI on the knee and will miss tonight’s game at Ottawa. Joey MacDonald has been called up from Bridgeport to backup Doobie. With Doobie in net, the game took a more defensive tone - 14 Islanders first period shots turned into just 4 second period shots. Still the Isles held a 3-2 lead after 2 periods.
An early 3rd period Islander powerplay backfired into a shorthanded goal and a 3-3 tie. It stayed that way through regulation thanks to the heroics of Doobie, Toronto goalie Andrew Raycroft and some goalposts. Both teams had some great chances down the stretch, including Mike Sillinger getting stoned on the doorstep twice by Raycroft with less than a minute left in regulation.
Richard Park got called for hooking in OT and it looked like the Isles were doomed on the 4-on-3 powerplay. Doooooobie to the rescue with some awesome saves and it looked like we were headed to a shootout, until this….
Richard Park (aka The “New” Jason Blake) pick-pocketed the “Old” Jason Blake at the Isles blueline and turned it into a 2-on-1 because of a Toronto line change. Park’s shot was deflected by the defenseman, stopped by Raycroft, but then a uncovered Mike Comrie came along and banged in the rebound with just 10 seconds left in OT for the 4-3 Islander win. Tic-Tac-Toe, three in a row for the Orange and Blue.
Blake’s miscue is sure to send Leafs Nation into a frenzy. After the game Blake defended his actions, while his coach wasn’t buying it.
“We’ve only got so many seconds left in overtime,” he said of his extended bout of stick-handling. “I was trying to make a play. [Park] made a great play by poke-checking it.”
Blake’s coach, Paul Maurice, was not impressed.
“He turned the puck over an awful lot tonight,” Maurice said. “You can’t turn it over there at any point in a game.”
Sorry Blakey…it was all just business last night.
Here’s what some of the players and coaches had to say following last night’s 3-2 Islander loss in OT at the hands of the Dallas Stars. Isles did a great job making sure they left the Coliseum with a point after it looked like the Stars would get the regulation victory.
“I don’t sense any frustration on the team yet,” Miro Satan told Newsday. “Our record is fine, and there’s enough experience and grit on this team to go through that.”
“The puck goes to one of the most skilled guys in the history of the game,” Coach Ted Nolan said to Newsday regarding Mike Modano’s game-winner. “It’s just one of those things.”
“It was one of those games where maybe we shouldn’t have gotten a point, but we found a way,” Nolan said.
“The thing you love about (Modano) is he’s getting into the battles,” Stars Coach Dave Tippett told the Dallas Morning News. “The winning goal is one in which he beat somebody to get to the space. It was a hard goal. Mo can be a real factor in games when he plays like that.”
“We took the responsibility for everyone to come ready to play in any situation they are put it in,” Modano told the Dallas newspaper. “The positive is we’re winning games, and everybody feels like they’re contributing and playing well collectively.”
“Normally I would just take him out, but I thought I still had a chance,” Stars goalie Marty Turco said to the Associated Press regarding Richard Park and his shorthanded goal. “You win some, you lose some.”
“We fought all game and did a pretty good job staying with our game plan,” Islanders forward Mike Comrie told the AP. “We got a good power-play goal at the end, but it’s disappointing when you give up that point.”
Hackers have apparently broken into the ESPN.com publishing system and slipped an interview with Mike Comrie onto the “Worldwide Leader in Sports (except hockey)” website.
Click through for the full interview, there are a bunch more questions including the now standard Hilary Duff related ones.
Q: Why did you choose the Islanders, a team that just lost its top offensive players in Ryan Smyth, Alexei Yashin and Jason Blake?
A: I spoke with [coach] Ted Nolan and [GM] Garth Snow, and, at the time, they were both very adamant that they wanted me to be one of the go-to guys on the team. As a player, to have that, to hear that from management, it’s exciting. Once I made my decision that I wanted to be part of the Islanders, I spoke to Ted again and it was refreshing that he made me feel special. He told me he wants me to play a lot of minutes and play in key situations and win hockey games.
Q: Why did you sign only a one-year deal?
A: I wanted to see how I fit in on the top line and to see if I enjoyed playing in the New York area. It’s better to see that it works for me and works for them, then we can move forward.
Q: So, how has it been so far?
A: I like it here. We have a great group of guys. We have to win games by everyone chipping in. We don’t have a $10 million player on this team. Everyone has to come and play hard every night.
We’re one month into the 2007-2008 season and we figured it’s time to take a look at how some of the ex-Islanders and their successors are faring. While we recognize it is way too early to make any concrete judgments based on the numbers, we were still curious to see the stats. We’ll be updating this information a few times during the course of the season.
The Old
Player G A Pts +/-
Jason Blake, TOR 2 11 13 3
Ryan Smyth, COL 5 4 9 2
Viktor Kozlov, WAS 2 5 7 0
Aaron Asham, NJ 3 2 5 0
The New
Player G A Pts +/-
Mike Comrie, NYI 5 6 11 -3
Bill Guerin, NYI 4 6 10 -2
Ruslan Fedotenko, NYI 3 5 8 -1
Josef Vasicek, NYI 3 1 4 -3
