While Tommy and I were busy drinking last night for his brother’s birthday (Happy 30th Ant!), the Orange and Blue took out the trash from Jersey 2-1 with Satan netting his third straight game winning goal. Another solid effort from the team – only 21 shots allowed and no penalties taken. I could get used to that. Speaking of penalties, a bench minor unsportsmanlike against one of Brent Sutter’s assistant coaches led to the 5-on-3 powerplay and the game winning goal, leaving a bad taste in the Devils’ mouths.
“All I’m going to say is that it was taken from behind the bench; it wasn’t a player,” Devils coach Brent Sutter said, refusing to identify which assistant drew the penalty. “It’s tough to lose a hockey game that way.”
“I don’t think they beat us,” Brodeur said. “Look at the two goals they got.”
“It was a [bleeping] terrible call. There’s no way around it,” the Devils’ Zach Parise said.
“I don’t think he needed to call that,” Jay Pandolfo said.
Isles hit the road for 4 of the next 5 games starting with Philadelphia tomorrow night. Check the recommended links for more info on last night’s game from the Blog Box crew.
[Update] Totally forgot to mention the Devils’ Marty Brodeur was going for career win number 500 last night.
FauxRumors thinks so, they’ve got the scoop on a possible big trade involving the Isles. Campoli, Hunter, and Satan are all mentioned as possibly being involved with a Western Conference team.
So much for the quiet dog days. LOL We were called early yesterday evening from a reliable source who mentioned that the NY Islanders may be closing in on a deal to ‘bolster their roster’. The source did NOT have all the specifics right now other than that its a Western conference team involved and there could be as many as 4 players and or picks involved in the deal.
Check out FauxRumors for the full report and any updates.
Miroslav Satan’s shootout goal and Doobie’s save of Jagr’s attempt moments later sealed a huge win last night for the Islanders and kept alive their slim playoff hopes.
The Isles have 86 points with three games remaining. Eighth-seeded Montreal has 90 points and ninth-seeded Toronto has 89. They both have just two games remaining. The Islanders and the Leafs meet tomorrow night. The Canadiens will play the Rangers and the Leafs this week.
Coach Ted told Newsday the OrangeAndBlue’s playoff chances are about “a million to one” but expressed some pleasure at keeping the Rangers from clinching their own playoff spot on the Osles’ home ice.
“We said, ‘If they’re going to clinch, let them clinch somewhere else.”
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Thanks to two goals in less than 30 seconds and some crazy big saves by DiPietro, the Islanders downed the Leafs 3-2 tonight in a shootout in Toronto. Hunter scored in the middle of the second period to tie the game. Less than a minute later, Satan put in a rebound off a Tambellini shot. The Maple Leafs tied the game at 2 later in the period.
The game featured one of the most exciting overtimes in recent memory. Steen shanked a wide open one-timer for Toronto. The Islanders missed on a couple of 2-on-1 breaks, including a nice play by Toronto to pick Hunter’s pocket after a great pass from Sillinger. The crowd sounded like they were on the edge of their seats the entire time.
DiPietro played out of his mind in the third period. 39 saves on the night to keep the Islanders in this one.
Rookie Frans Nielsen took the first shot in the shootout and put a backhander past Andrew Raycroft. DP then stoned the first Leaf shooter. Raycroft stayed back and waited out Satan for the save. Mats Sundin scored with a top shelf wrister from pretty far out. Viktor Kozlov countered with a huge goal to give the Isles the lead, bringing Raycroft to the ice and flipping a backhander over him. DP then made a relatively easy save on Antopov to end the game.
The Islanders win. Big win.
DP had 39 saves.
Wild game last night. Before I could even sit down and turn the TV on, it was 3-1 Atlanta and DP was on the bench. Smart move by Nolan yanking DP to wake the team up. If this was last year’s squad, I would have just changed to channel to watch Nanny 911. To their credit, the Isles stayed focused and got themselves back into the game.
Miroslav Satan had a huge shorthanded goal in the early 2nd to get the team rolling. Later in the second, Jason Blake (who else?!) scored to tie the game up.
Atlanta’s leading scorer, Marian Hossa left the game in the second with an apparent knee injury as he slammed into the boards after a Freddy Meyer tripping penalty. It looked bad as Hossa rolled around on the ice for a few minutes. Apparently it wasn’t that bad, as Hossa returned for the third and quickly (:19) scored to give the Thrashers the lead again.
The Isles fought back again though, as Campoli deflected a Meyer shot during a 4-on-4 for his first goal of the season. The puck went in off Campoli’s skate, so there was a video review but no kicking motion, so the goal stood.
In OT, Kovalchuk scored his second of the game on a nasty wrister/snap shot. I’m not surprised. I had a bad feeling about OT. Atlanta is fast and the 4-on-4 OT plays to their strength.
Coach Nolan was upbeat about the loss.
Reflecting on the comeback, Nolan couldn’t help but smile as he said: “It’s a first-place team and you’re down 3-0 in their rink with a packed house. A point is like a win on the road.”
Better than no points, that’s for sure. Other game notes:
- Brendan Witt left the game early in the first with an injury and did not return. He’s listed as day to day with an upper body injury.
- It’s so good to have Radek Martinek back. He looked solid and had a big hit on Kovalchuk in the third.
- DP is expected to be back in net tonight as the Islanders host Buffalo. It’s 1972 Retro Night as the Isles will rock old-school 1972 jerseys and Eddie Westfall will drop the ceremonial face-off.
- Holy Iron Batman! Trent Hunter 2 posts, and I think the Isles hit about 5 overall. All night long you heard “TINK!”
Video highlights from NHL.com
Good Morning! Are you ready for some hockey? Maybe not, but let’s hope the boys in blue and orange are.
[00:00 1st Period] Just so you know, Slapshot is on Cinemax right now. I’m torn. At least I know what I’m doing between periods now.
[01:15] First good scoring chance goes to the Lightning as Marty St. Louis streaks in on DP alone. Damn he’s fast. DP comes up with the big save.
[02:13] Isles get the first PP of the game as Kubina goes to the box for holding on Asham.
[03:38] GOAL!! It’s a powerplay goal for Yashin as he comes out of the corner, shoots, and then bangs in his own rebound for the 1-0 lead.
[04:00] Fox Sports NY (FSNY) runs the stat, the Isles are 17-3-1 when scoring first.
[05:25] Islander All-Star Jason Blake bumps into Lightning goalie Johan Holmqvist. Holmqvist makes it looks like he’s been shot. Refs give Holmqvist an Oscar and Blake a 2 minute penalty for goaltender interference. Give me a break.
[06:20] Sean Hill just creamed St. Louis in the corner. Sweet.
[06:55] Isles can’t clear on the PK and it leads to a Lightning goal. Vaclav Prospal powers to the net, DP makes the save and Eric Perrin bangs in the rebound.
[08:24] Replay shows Prospal scored the Islanders goal as Perrin actually whiffed. Witt picks up a penalty for a holding. Another ticky-tacky call.
[09:21] Brad Richards blast a one-timer in and out of the net. Video review, but this one’s gonna count. 2-1 Lightning on 3 powerplay goals so far.
[14:26] Corey Sarich picks up a penalty to give the Isles their 2nd powerplay of the afternoon. FSNY shows replays of the first Isles/Lightning game this season. Three backdoor goals by the Lightning vs the Islanders. Very similar to the two goals scored by them today. The Isles D needs some rear-view mirrors mounted to their helmets vs. this team.
[15:36] The Isles ice the puck…on the powerplay.
[15:53] Are you $@^@ kidding me? They just did it again.
[16:26] Powerplay over. I think they had as many shots as they did icings on that powerplay.
[16:55] A 2 on 2 offensive rush by the Lightning leads to 3 DP saves.
[16:55] FSNY comes back from the break with a shot of the Islanders’ Most Famous Fan – Christie Brinkley. Mmmm.
[20:00 1st Period] And that’s the end of the first. Isles waste a good start giving up 2 PP goals. Shots in favor of the Isles 9-8.
[00:00 2nd Period] “The fans are standing up to them. The security guards are standing up to them. The peanut vendors are standing up to them. And by golly, if I could be down there, I’d be standing up to them.” My favorite movie ever, with Caddyshack a close second. If it’s on TV I have to watch it.
[00:37] Hilbert holds onto St. Louis in the corner a little too long and gets called for holding. Another Lightning PP.
[00:58] Surprise! Backdoor pass for Fedotenko who’s all alone, but DP breaks up the pass. Whew.
[01:07] Which leads to a nice shorthanded attempt by Kozlov. Save Holmqvist. FSNY tells us the Lightning are 6 for 10 on the PP vs. the Islanders this season. Oy!
[02:37] Isles kill off the rest of the penalty.
[06:30] Hunter/Sillinger/Hilbert line generates some pressure and a couple of shots.
[08:20] Blake from behind the net to a streaking Poti for a one-timer, but it is deflected or stopped wide.
[08:45] Poti gets called for hooking and TB’s 4th PP of the afternoon.
[09:55] A hard clear by Gervais wraps all the way around to Kozlov who streaks into the offensive zone and fires a hard shot. That’s two decent shots by Koz while shorthanded today.
[10:11] DP comes out of the net to his right to try and stop the puck from wrapping around. He trips/falls and touches the puck across the red-line in the “no-goalies allowed” zone. Tampa’s going to end up with 34 seconds of 5 on 3 PP time.
[10:45] The 5 on 3 is over, Tampa had 2 great shots but missed the net both times. Isles get a little lucky there.
[12:11] Isles kill DP’s penalty off too. We’re just a little past halfway through the game and the Isles have given up 5 powerplays. Not good.
[12:45] Crowd wakes up a little, tries to get into it. Looks pretty crowded, I bet the “announced” attendance will be a sellout or close.
[13:41] DP tries to catch the Lightning on player change with a long pass up ice to Blake. Blake’s got 1 man to beat on his way to the net. He tries to shoulder his way in there, but doesn’t get much of a shot off. He does go crashing into Holmqvist again. No call this time.
[15:37] Lecavalier goes around Poti and to the net. Save DP. Lecavalier takes out DP (with not much contact from the Islander D), and St. Louis bangs in the rebound for a 3-1 Lightning lead. Yuck.
[17:45] Blake drop pass for Yashin who blasts it…high and wide.
[20:00 2nd Period] St. Louis picks up a penalty for roughing with 47 seconds left in the period. With the Isles on the PP and just a few seconds left in the period, Hill takes a big shot from the point, save. Blake’s in front looking for the rebound, he gets crossed checked on top of the Lightning goalie. Sillinger comes flying into the crease hitting a Lightning player and looking for a rebound. Nolan Pratt proceeds to dump Silly into the net. Satan tries to come to Silly’s aid and gets tied up with another Lightning player. Pushing, shoving, penalties are called. 2 on the Lightning 1 on Satan for the Islanders. Nice.
[00:00 3rd Period] Isles will start the 3rd period with a 5 on 3 powerplay for 1:13. GOTTA get one back here, cut lead to 1, get the crowd into it. Yashin’s going to start the period on the left point.
[01:10] Isles work it around, 2 shots from Yashin, top of the circles, wide or deflected. Blakey and Poti keep the Isles in possession of the puck. They work it into the slot for Sillinger, save. Back again to Sillinger who feeds Kozlov behind him on the left. Holmqvist slides over to face Kozlov. Koz waits, waits, waits and the roofs it over his glove for the POWERPLAY GOAL! 3-2 Tampa and the Isles will still be on the powerplay.
[02:00] Hill a shot with Blake right in front, save. Hill another shot from the left side, save. Islanders powerplay is over.
[04:20] FSNY tells us the Isles have taken the last 12 shots in the game, including all 8 in the 3rd period.
[04:50] Kozlov giveaway to Lecavalier at the Isles blue line. Witt ties him up and just manhandles him off the puck taking away what could have been a good scoring chance.
[07:25] Crap. Witt sends the puck around the boards, it hits a piece of a broken stick and Hill can’t handle it. St. Louis scoops it up and finds Lecavalier on DP’s backdoor. DP makes an awesome save on the first shot and stops the rebound, but Lecavalier banks his third chance into the back of the net. 4-2 Lightning.
[10:45] GOAL! Hunter brings the Islanders back within 1, banging in a rebound of a Sillinger shot. Great shift by this line – working the puck and getting shots, glad to see they ended it with a goal.
[11:00] Isles almost give it right back. DP with a big save on Fedotenko.
[14:55] 5:05 left in the game. 5:04.03 until the Isles tie this one up. Christie Brinkley is doing the YMCA. Hot.
[18:50] DP heads for the bench for the extra attacker.
[19:50] Satan starts the rush off with a wrister, the rebound drops at Holmqvist’s feet, in the crease. No one around to bang at the inviting rebound. Isles work it, get some shots. Sillinger shot, save, Holmqvist holds on. Isles call timeout with 9.3 seconds remaining.
[20:00 3rd Period] The puck shoots back towards the blue line off the faceoff and no one can keep it in. That’ll do it. The Isles lose 4-3 despite outshooting the Lightning 36-24. No time to cry about it, the Islanders play in Pittsburgh tomorrow night.
It was a wild finish in front of a sold out Nassau Coliseum Saturday night vs the New Jersey Devils. After 58 1/2 minutes of scoreless hockey between the teams, the Devils’ John Madden beat Ricky over his right shoulder with a hard wrister for the 1-0 lead. This sent some of the less loyal fans headed for the parking lot to beat the traffic.
Suckers. Here’s the scene from inside the Coliseum as Miro Satan put in a rebound with 0.7 seconds left to send the game into OT. Yeah, I missed the actual goal on film. Can you blame me?
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Wow. The crowd was fired up after that. Here’s the Let’s Go Islanders chant.
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Alas, it was not to be. A Bruno Gervais turnover in OT left Ricky alone with 2 Devils, and Scott Gomez scored the game winner in OT.
Despite the lack of scoring, it was an entertaining game. The Islanders had a good number of chances and a couple of pucks that skidded just wide of the goalposts. Ricky played well and had a couple of big saves too. It was the first night of the 6-game ticket plan I purchased and was a good crowd. The Islanders announced it was a sellout, I’d estimate the actual attendance at about 90% of capacity. Making the night even better my brother and I finally found Canadian beer for sale at the Coliseum, stumbling upon a vendor selling Molson XXX. Hells freakin’ yeah. The guy next to me must have known about the Molson’s already, he was trashed and stunk like a brewery everytime he turned to open his mouth and slur out a question. “What num-bersssss is Jashhhhhon Blake and Shhhhawn Batesssss?”. I just hope this guy didn’t buy the 6-game plan too.
Isles’ matinee tomorrow at noon vs the Lightning. The $19 Havoc Energy seats go on sale at 10:30am. Damn that’s early for hockey. Look for me on my couch with some coffee for some updates.
Video highlights from NHL.com
The final voting for the 2007 NHL All-Star Game starters have been released. Not surprisingly, no Islanders were voted in. It appears that Miroslav Satan led all Islanders with 63,067 votes, good for 30th in the Eastern Conference – ouch! Sid The Kid was probably getting that many votes EACH WEEK.
Of course the Islanders are guaranteed at least one All-Star later, when the coaches fill out the rosters. Blake? DP? Who do you think it will be? My $$ is on #55.
Forwards
Sidney Crosby, PIT 825,783
Daniel Briere, BUF 475,857
Alexander Ovechkin, WSH 475,297
Maxim Afinogenov, BUF 469,431
Evgeni Malkin, PIT 399,081
Chris Drury, BUF 330,000
Jaromir Jagr, NYR 321,578
Erik Cole, CAR 255,063
Rod Brind’Amour, CAR 249,632
Ilya Kovalchuk, ATL 226,602
Marian Hossa, ATL 207,393
Saku Koivu, MTL 199,857
Brendan Shanahan, NYR 174,450
Eric Staal, CAR 168,290
Dany Heatley, OTT 167,021
Vincent Lecavalier, TBL 164,522
Mats Sundin, TOR 157,551
Thomas Vanek *, BUF 154,660
Peter Forsberg, PHI 148,690
Marco Sturm *, BOS 135,038
Patrice Bergeron, BOS 134,895
Daniel Alfredsson, OTT 122,523
Olli Jokinen, FLA 111,203
Jason Spezza, OTT 110,083
Martin St. Louis, TBL 103,573
Simon Gagne, PHI 86,843
Patrik Elias, NJD 80,538
Brian Gionta, NJD 74,599
Brad Richards, TBL 71,944
Miroslav Satan, NYI 63,067
Scott Gomez, NJD 61,901
Michael Nylander, NYR 61,623
Get your scorecards here! You can’t tell the players without a scorecard! A few roster changes for tonight’s game in Carolina.
- Shawn Bates is out tonight with a hand injury. If I remember correctly, he got popped blocking a Devils’ shot on Thursday night. Frans Nielsen has been called up from Bridgeport to take his roster spot.
The New York Islanders have recalled center Frans Nielsen from the Bridgeport Sound Tigers of the American Hockey League. Nielsen, a 2002 third round draft pick of the Islanders, is poised to become the first Danish-born player to ever appear in an NHL game.
In 33 games with Bridgeport this season, Nielsen has scored 10 goals with 13 assists for 23 points and 4 penalty minutes. He also had a +3 plus/minus rating. Nielsen was signed by the Islanders to a two-year contract on May 15, 2006.
- Satan should play tonight, he sat out part of Thursday’s game and Friday’s practice with a swollen ankle.
- As mentioned here yesterday, defenseman Fred Meyer is expected to make his Islanders debut.
- Garth Snow…The Hardest Working GM in the League? Isles made a minor league deal with Ottawa yesterday.
The Ottawa Senators completed a minor trade Friday, sending defenseman Tomas Malec to the New York Islanders for center Matt Koalska.
Koalska was assigned to Binghamton of the American Hockey League.
A fifth-round pick of Nashville in 2000, Koalska was signed by New York as a free agent in August 2004. The 26-year-old native of Minnesota has split time this season with Bridgeport and Hershey, recording three goals and two assists in 14 games.
Koalska made his NHL debut with the Islanders last season, registering two penalty minutes in three contests.
Malec, who was selected in the third round of the 2001 draft by Florida, collected a goal and 12 assists in 33 games with Binghamton this campaign. The 24-year-old Slovakian has appeared in 45 NHL contests with Carolina and Ottawa, notching two assists and 47 penalty minutes.
- Newsday’s Greg Logan looks at the new-look Islanders roster on his Newsday blog.
- Milbury is gone (sort of) but Milbury bashing never dies. Thursday night’s hero for the Devils, Zach Parise could have been an Islander. Eric at Off Wing Opinion looks at another one of Mad Mike’s blunders. Maybe one of these days Nilsson will join the big club and exonerate Milbury.
But it wasn’t to be. Instead, with the 17th pick in the first round Milbury, most likely going with the advice of another ex-Islander, Andres Kallur, snapped up Robert Nilsson, son of ex-NHLer Kent Nilsson. Just two picks later, the Devils snapped up Zach at #19.
And while Nilsson is still a promising prospect a little less than a week short of his 22nd birthday, he’s still in the AHL with Bridgeport while the younger Parise is making a significant one at the NHL level right now.
In isolation, it’s just the sort of judgement call NHL GMs are forced to make in the draft every single year. But when you match it up with the remainder of Milbury’s record as a GM, his tenure on the Island looks all the more disastrous.
With Mighty Jason Blake’s so far stellar season, we here at IslandersArmy took a closer look at his stats. Here’s what we found:
- Blake is scoring on 17.9 percent of his shots. An outstanding mark. #55 had scored on 8 percent of his shots during his prevous eight seasons.
- The only current Islander forward who has ever posted a better scoring percentage in a full season is Miroslav Satan. Miro scored on 19.2 percent of his shots with the Sabres in 1998-1999 when he had 40 goals.
- Blake is taking 3.3 shots a game, up from his career average of 2.7 and down from last year’s even 4 shots a game.
- Blake has 28 career power play goals, 11 of which he has scored this season.
- Blake is on pace for 89 points. His career high is 57 set last season when he had 28 goals and 29 assists.
- He is averaging 1.09 points per game.
- And, not that we have any stats to show it, he’s fast.
[Update] Nice post by Tom digging up the stats on the always hustling J. Blake. Just wanted to add this link to Newsday’s article about Blake’s impending free agency and the Islanders’ desire to resign him. -murph
“Blake fits in the picture for sure,” Islanders coach Ted Nolan said. “I’ve been associated with hockey for a long time, but very few times do you have a player of his determination and grit. He just wants to score and win and he battles. The fans appreciate him and we appreciate him. He’s definitely a big part of this team.”
[Update 2] Looks like it’s Jason Blake day in Islander country as Newsday’s Greg Logan has posted a story about #55 on his Islanders Blog.
No doubt, Blake is on the hottest roll of his career with 20 goals through 34 games, which is just eight goals short of his best full season. Presumably, talking about it might upset the hockey gods who control these things, and what’s the point of jinxing himself?
Coach Ted Nolan has another theory. He suggested Blake’s competitive zeal has rubbed off on Alexei Yashin, whose playmaking ability, in turn, has shoveled coal into the fire in Blake’s belly, fueling his desire to score. The symbiotic reaction generated by Nolan’s decision to pair them on the top line clearly has been one of the major reasons for the Islanders’ transformation into a legitimate playoff contender.
