Monthly Archives: December 2011
On an afternoon when the Islanders organization inducted Ken Morrow into its hockey hall of fame, an enthusiastic Nassau Coliseum crowd was fully entertained by the youthful exuberance that was displayed before them.
Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the 2010 and 2011 first overall selections in the NHL entry drafts, respectively, didn’t disappoint. However, John Tavares, the league’s top pick back in 2009, brought the 13,807 home fans to its feet on an assist to fellow top liner Matt Moulson, which would even make former U.S. Olympic Gold Medalist Dorothy Hamill proud.
Moulson’s 17th goal of the season late in the first period snapped a 1-1 tie, as the Islanders closed out the 2011 calendar year in style by defeating the Edmonton Oilers, 4-1. The victory, the Islanders’ second in less than 72 hours over a team located in the province of Alberta – they defeated Calgary 3-1 on Thursday evening at home – also extended the team’s dominance on New Year’s Eve. The Islanders are now 6-0-1 in their last seven contests on the Eve.
Yet, it was the individual effort by the 21-year-old from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada that stole the game’s spotlight, and deflated the Oilers from mounting a serious rally against the Islanders.
Tavares battled Nugent-Hopkins for the puck in the neutral zone. He skated up the far-side wall into the Oilers offensive zone, with Nugent Hopkins shadowing him. Tavares then spotted Moulson to the left of Oilers net-minder Devan Dubnyk. Instead of trying to veer the puck through Oilers defenseman Corey Potter, who was stationed in front of the Oilers crease, Tavares executed a spin-o-rama.
The move – a self-proclaimed double axel – not only neutralized Potter, who would sprawl past the Oilers net, but would spin Nugent-Hopkins to obscurity. Tavares then slid the biscuit to an awaiting Moulson, who roofed it over the left shoulder of a helpless Dubnyk.
Tavares’ assist – his 18th of the season – had followed an earlier power play goal, which opened the game’s scoring at 3:44 of the opening period. Tavares pounced on a loose rebound of a P.A. Parenteau shot, and deposited into the wide open Oilers net.
Edmonton’s Sam Gagner tied the score nine minutes later, as he deflected a Potter slap shot past a fallen Islander goalie Evgeni Nabokov, while being draped by Islander defenseman and captain Mark Streit.
The Islanders would put the victory to bed during a 46 second span, early in the second period.
After Oilers forward Ben Eager took a roughing penalty against Islanders forward Matt Martin at the 2:52 mark of the second period, the Islanders made quick work of their power play, as Parenteau blasted his seventh of the season on a wrister from the left circle. Moulson’s second assist of the game and third point was the primary helper that Parenteau needed to beat Dubnyk glove side.
Martin, who made Eager’s New Year’s Eve one that he will quickly not forgot, closed out the scoring at 4:05 on a gorgeous back-handed feed by line-mate Josh Bailey. Martin’s fourth of the season came from the right corner and deflected off of Dubnyk’s left pad and into the net.
The Oilers had their opportunities over the game’s final 35 minutes, but were thwarted by Nabokov (28 saves). The goaltender was also helped by his goalpost and crossbar, as the visitors hit them on three occasions, two by Hall.
With the win, the Islanders improve to 13-17-6 and are now 8-9-3 at the friendly confines of the Coliseum. At 32 points, the Islanders are now tied with the Carolina Hurricanes for 14th in the Eastern Conference. They stand nine points behind the eighth-place Toronto Maple Leafs for the Conference’s final playoff spot.
The Islanders now trek on a three-game road trip, beginning Tuesday night in Raleigh when they face off against the Hurricanes.
With the loss, the Oilers fall to 15-19-3 and are now 5-13-1 on the road. The loss, Edmonton’s ninth in their last 11 games in also the team’s third straight in the midst of their current seven-game road trip. The Oilers continue that cross country excursion on Monday evening with a trip to the Windy City to face off against the Chicago Blackhawks.
On to some of the positives and negatives in the +/-
+ Ken Morrow – Prior to the game, Morrow was inducted into the Islanders Hall of Fame. In 550 NHL games – all with the Islanders – Morrow collected 105 points (17 goals and 88 assists) and played on all four Stanley Cup championship teams. He is still the only American-born player to have won an Olympic Gold Medal and a Stanley Cup Championship in the same season (1980).
+ Matt Martin – Point Blank conducted a poll early in the week on who was the team’s “Heart and Soul” player. By goading Oilers forward Ben Eager into two careless penalties, which resulted in two Islanders power play goals, Martin is himself stating a case for that distinction. His play isn’t flashy, yet he continually does his job night in and night out. Adding a goal can’t help but make Martin’s New Years even sweeter.
+ Travis Hamonic – Making a paltry $875,000 in his second season of a three-year entry level contract, Hamonic continues to be far and away the team’s most steady defenseman. He shadowed the kid line of Nugent-Hopkins-Hall-Eberle and held them scoreless on the scoring sheet. The trio was also a -5 in the game. While he might not be getting Prince Fielder money, Hamonic is surely in for a hefty pay raise in the next calendar year.
+ Evgeni Nabokov – The 36 year-old net-minder now stands three wins away from 300 in his NHL career. With the victory, Nabokov is now 6-1 over his last seven games against the Oilers, dating back to his days manning the net in San Jose.
+ Special Teams – The Islanders held the league’s third most potent power play to two shots in four power play opportunities. Conversely, Tavares and Parenteau scored with the man advantage, as the Islanders power play went 2-for-3.
+ Over .500 – With this afternoon’s victory, the New York Islanders leaped over the .500 mark in its team’s history. The Islanders now stand at 1,326-1,325-427 in 3,078 games.
+ Dominance vs. West – The Islanders improved to 14-1-7 in its last 22 home games vs. the Western Conference.
+ Oil Spilling – The Islanders have now won its last six home games against the Oilers. Edmonton’s last victory at Nassau Coliseum occurred back on December 14, 1999. Former Islanders Bill Guerin and Janne Niinimaa each scored for the Oilers, while recent retiree Mike Grier had the game-winner in the Oilers’ 4-2 win. Mariusz Czerkawski and Mats Lindgren lit the lamp in defeat.
+ World Junior Championships (Team Canada) – Ryan Strome has shown Islander fans and the entire hockey world why he was selected fifth overall in this past June’s NHL Entry Draft. Strome has collected seven points – three goals and four assists – for team Canada in its first three preliminary games. The Canadians have outscored its opposition, 23 -3 in three resounding victories. The Canadians next play the United States later this afternoon in its fourth and final preliminary game.
+ World Junior Championships (Team Sweden) – Johan Sundstrom, selected 50th overall by the Islanders in this past June’s NHL Entry Draft, has collected four points – one goal and three assists – in Team Sweden’s first three preliminary games. The Swedes have outscored its opposition, 22-8 in winning all three of its games. The Swedes battle the undefeated Russians later this evening in its final preliminary game.
- Mark Streit and Steve Staios – The defensemen took all four of the team’s penalties, and struggled in their own zone. Staios, understandably, was in his first game back from an upper body injury.
- Coliseum Ice – Pucks seemed to be on edge all game long. That was clearly evident on Michael Grabner’s partial break-away early in the second period. Yet, a win is a win.
- Bridgeport Sound Tigers – After Friday evening’s 3-2 setback at Norfolk, the Sound Tigers have now dropped eight of its last nine games. They currently sit in the cellar of the Northeast Division of the AHL’s Eastern Conference with a 12-16-3-1 record. The Sound Tigers finish off 2011 with a trip to Scranton later this evening to face off against the Penguins.
We already posted the 2011 Goal of the Year nominees for the Islanders earlier this week but John Tavares and Matt Moulson decided to try and get one more submission in before the year ended. During the first period of today’s game against the Oilers the pair broke into the offensive zone 2-on-1. Tavares spun and fired a pass across the slot to Moulson, who made no mistakes finishing after getting a potential goal wiped off earlier in the frame. As always, thanks to Keith for the video.
Talk about the game here. Post game report to follow. Same lineup as earlier this week with Nabokov starting. Steve Staios is a game time decision.
WESTERN CONFERENCE PWNAGE
There was a weird statistic that popped up after last night’s game (saw it so many places I don’t know who to credit) that the Islanders, after beating the Flames last night, are now 13-1-7 in their last 21 home games against Western Conference teams. Sure, that’s one of those stats that’s pretty damned specific and you can probably dig that kind of thing up on any team if you look hard enough (Team X is 10-1 when so-and-so’s girlfriend’s dog is in attendance). But I guess any record where the Islanders are X-1-X in 20+ games is going to be eye-popping, as it probably should be. I think there’s a reasonable explanation here though.
For the past few years there was a statistic going around the NFL about west coast teams playing on the east coast. From FanHouse in 2008:
Eric Kuselias brought up the point that west coast teams play poorly when they travel east. He argued that west teams are forced to play the early game when are the visitors in east coast cities and they are struggling to adapt…Western teams are a combined 0-9 when they play in the Eastern Time Zone.
The obvious caveat here is that the west coast teams weren’t very good that year, all hovering around .500. But it’s a point maybe someone should look into more as it relates to hockey. Is this stat a blip that only pertains to the Islanders? Random statistics are of course, random and this could certainly be. Is it more indicative of how tough travel is on the west coast teams? As anyone around here knows, not only is it tough to travel around New York and Long Island this time of year, it’s even tougher to get here private jet or not. Maybe the time change, jet lag and travel play into it a bit.
I did a quick lookup of the other locals. The Rangers are 13-8 in the last two seasons at home against the west and the Devils are 12-7-3. Winning records but not as dominant. Kind of the records you would expect given a home-ice advantage. So maybe it’s a blip after all. Besides, if you take those Islanders OTLs and move them over to the regular Ls column, these records look eerily similar.
TAVARES GET PUNKED
Gotta love the team getting smart with the first star during the post-game celebration. Tavares tried to one-up them and ran back to the locker room, ditching the post-game interview with Ruttgaizer at least momentarily. Video courtesy Keith.
IN OTHER NEWS…
- Jaromir Jagr tweaks Pens fans with a cheeky goal celebration in his return to Pittsburgh.
- James Wisniewski’s career in Columbus got worse. He broke an ankle last night. No [redacted] motions were seen.
- “Tavares Taunts Flames” is a good enough headline for me to link this.
- Darren Dreger weighs in on the Islanders’ struggles:
We’ve seen the Islanders make late season charges and claw back to respectability and I suspect that will be the case again this season. However, it appears too much damage has already been done for New York to do anything but start selling hope for next season. Snow has the assets to attract trades, but he may elect to be patient…allow this young team to grow together before assessing where his most glaring needs are in the offseason. I predict Doug Weight will take on a bigger role, as he seems to enjoy his time on the bench and clearly has a good connection with New York’s young talent.
The Islanders were primed for a letdown going up against a Flames team that was 6-2-2 in their last 10 and riding a four game winning streak coming in.
So, did anyone jump after the Isles gave up a goal within the first five minutes of the game for the 7th time this season? (Thanks Isles broadcast) Nobody could blame you if you did, but you missed a heck of a game.
Despite dominating possession on the opening shift, a misplay on a pinch by Mike Mottau went the other way leaving Tom Kostopoulos alone on the right wing to fire a pass that hit Andrew Macdonald’s skate first, then carom in off of Tim Jackman’s skate to give the Flames the lead at 1:11.
The ex-teammates are killing this team. Although tonight, it would not be the latest ex-Islander Blake Comeau whose biggesst impact may have been to the detriment of his own body as Matt Moulson shook him off like an ugly sweater. Many have lamented the Comeau cut, but on the night, he was about as noticeable as he’d been as an Islander with 2 shots, a block and a hit in 11:35 of ice time. He still has only five points and is a -12 in 34 games this season.
The shots did not reflect it, but the Islanders continued to dominate possession and dictate play throughout the remainder of the period . There was an excellent physical response to a questionable hit on Kyle Okposo by Lee Stepniak. Matt Moulson led the charge, but the entire line came to the aid of their teammates including John Tavares, Mike Mottau and Mark Eaton. Maybe Garth Snow’s mention of “team toughness” is sinking in a bit. The hit is borderline on a couple of fronts (it was shoulder to head, it was late), but it may not be suspension worthy…in this game, it wasn’t even penalty worthy as Moulson was given a double minor for roughing and Chris Butler was given the regular roughing (instead of a third man in) to put the Flames on the power play which would carry into the next period.
The Islanders would tie the game at 3:04 of the second as during a quick reunion of Tavares and PA Parenteu due to the penalties. Tavares dug a puck loose behind the net and got it to Parenteau who found Andrew MacDonald wandering around the slot. He beat Mikko Kiprusoff with the drop-knee, one-timer over the left pad and under the glove for his third of the year.
The Isles continued to dictate the pace of the second, outshooting the Flames 14-9, and Evgeni Nabokov was outstanding in the net all night. He is beginning to show some of his old self which will be a real asset for this team in light of the injuries.
The Islanders struck early again in the third when Kyle Okposo made a touch pass off the boards to Tavares in the Islanders zone (around the top of the circle) that he took down the right wing boards. He beat the Calgary defender and began to cut toward the net at the bottom of Calgary’s circle, cut across the crease pulled the puck away from the pokecheck zone and swept it in past Kiprusoff’s right pad circa NHL ’94 (again). It left Howie Rose lamenting (sic) “I mean, that was a SICK PLAY”. It would hold up as the game winner with Brian Rolston empty-net gravy.
The Okposo to Tavares goal was another great display of chemistry between 91 and 21 who several times on the night were able to make tape to tape passes up a seam in coverage and generate scoring chances that Islander fans aren’t used to seeing. At least for one night, the line experiments seemed to work top to bottom. Each line brought a physical presence, a speed presence and a possession presence. There was generally adequate backcheck pressure to cover for some of the weaker defensive pairings. Without looking at a game sheet, you’d be hard pressed to say notables like Jarome Iginla, Olli Jokinnen and Jay Bouwmeester (combined -6) even played tonight.
Islander country will live another day and perhaps the team will get healthy, and continue the progress we saw a couple of weeks ago.
Noticings:
- Great team wide gag on John Tavares as everyone blew off his “low-5″ run of the gauntlet during his first star announcement.
- Matt Martin had another tremendous physical game with 7 hits and one leading directly to about a minute of sustained Islander pressure and a quality scoring chance for Bailey and Grabner. Let’s hope he can continue that level of physicality with an increase in ice time, because the speed of Grabner and the physicality of Martin will open up a lot of ice for Bailey’s creativity.
- Again, great to see the entire team step up their physical play and someone taking liberties with their players.
- Jurcina was getting some nice bombs off from the point…Hamonic was hitting some shin pads. He needs to work a little on getting that shot off faster and less telegraphed…because it’s a good one.
- Hamonic was rubbing guys completely out of the play tonight. It was to the point where they would lose the puck and not be able to get back into the play. It was beautiful.
- Amac looks to be at full speed now. This may be the best thing to happen to this defense in a long time. Although we’ll all sign up for less up the middle passes to his vacated point spot.
Next game is against rebuild west…the Edmonton Oilers. It will be a 1pm matinee at NVMC. May be fun to get some tickets to compare the two as there is a good sized ton of similarities between the two rebuilds.
Above is the video of the GM Show from yesterday afternoon with Garth Snow and Chris King. It covered an awful lot of subjects from Dylan Reese to — kind of surprised they touched on it — just about every Islander who was on the roster last year and did not return. The questions themselves certainly covered a lot of ground and give credit to, I’m assuming, Kinger for picking out the questions that are the ones bantered about in this comment section and others on a daily basis. For a controlled PR event, I was really pretty surprised. Of course, if you were expecting exceptionally candid or fire and brimstone answers from the GM your expectations were way out of bounds.
There are almost no NHL GMs out there that are going to host a show like this and throw anyone under the bus (that would be questionable personnel management at minimum) or get worked into a frenzy (see: previous Islanders GM) about the team’s play, especially in this setting. So you can certainly attempt to read between some of the lines and make some assumptions, but expecting much, if anything, to be spelled out for the viewer would be very naive. Whether it’s a CEO of a company or an NHL GM, you’re generally not going to see anyone in management ripping anyone below them up. If you do, that’s either their modus operandi (see: Dean Lombardi) or it may be indicative of a deeper problem in the organization. The Islanders have their problems, but giving fans and media easily quotable barbs from the GM is not going to be one of them.
A few random thoughts:
- Dylan Reese being called “the best defender in Bridgeport” would be any and all explanations as to why he is first on the phone when a call-up is needed. This, to me, confirms that no one else is ready.
- The Blake Comeau (LIVE AND IN COLOR TONIGHT) question was another interesting one but didn’t really answer why he was let go (or not let go earlier). It does show that there was enough confidence in Ullstrom and other guys at Bridgeport (Wallace) to not worry about having to dip into that pool.
- The Micheal Haley question was a nice way of saying that he either ‘isn’t well rounded’ or ‘wasn’t playing very well’.
“We’re not going to recall someone based on reputation, we’re going to do it based on who’s performing.”
The most informative quote of the whole show, maybe? Snow also cited players being called up for specific roles, and Haley’s role is clearly limited to ‘tough guy’ so yeah, there’s that for anyone who still thinks he is a multi-dimensional player. Sure, more multi-dimensional than Trevor Gillies, but that doesn’t say much.
NEW LINEUPS FOR YOUR CONSUMPTION
So, with the offense downgraded back to “definitely struggling” after being “able to distinguish the net from the playing surface” for a few weeks, we get some lineup changes. Snow didn’t want to allude to them in the interview, I guess unaware the Islanders have a Twitter, but here they are per that Twitter.
Moulson-Tavares-Okposo
Rolston-Nielsen-Parenteau
Grabner-Bailey-Martin
Pandolfo-Reasoner-Niederreiter, Wallace
As you can see, both Rolston and Pandolfo seem ready to return if they’re being patched into new lineups. The Twitter also noted that Haley was in yellow at practice and DiPietro did skate with the team. Remember, Haley was called up when Ullstrom went down with a concussion. I *think* he was an emergency call-up, so the Islanders wouldn’t have to make a decision on him until Ullstrom returned. The most likely roster move here is that the trio of Montoya, Ullstrom and Staios that have been the (un)healthy scratches over the last few games would get shifted to IR if Pandolfo or Rolston are ready to go.
As for the lineups themselves, Okposo is interesting on the first line. I’ve seen some folks pining for him to get his shot on the top line, and here it is. He’s been playing with a lot of energy lately and deserves the chance. Personally, I’m not thrilled with any of the other lines, although the third line should be interesting. Grabner seems kind of an odd pairing next to Bailey and Martin but he has what the other two don’t; speed. He may help open things up a lot there.
OF COMEAUS AND CALGARY
Blake Comeau makes his return to the Coliseum tonight. So there’s that to look forward to. Dom’s got the roundup and what appears to be descending levels of praise from Calgary on Comeau. Kind of what you would expect to hear. It starts around the beginning of December with…
“Blake Comeau is an excellent player. He brings speed, energy, hits and solid two-way play night in and night out. The Flames are lucky to have him.”
…and descends to something that sounds a lot more like the Comeau that was cast off:
Comeau and Backlund have some good chemistry. I think both could be a little more direct in their play to get some consistent production. Of late, you see real good possession and passing but it’s not turning into shots on net. This is indicative of the team’s problems sometimes, they can get too cute.
A change of scenery likely did Comeau good. He’s got some OK numbers in Calgary so far with five points and -1 in 17 games. That’s nothing to write home about but when compared to a bunch of zeroes for 16 games, well, anything is going to look good, isn’t it?
The point that the Islanders probably should have gotten more than nothing for Comeau still stands, but the team hasn’t looked particularly different since his departure and, honestly, would it really be better off with him? Josh Bailey has clearly looked better since having the circling helicopter taken off his line and we can talk about him being a 24-goal scorer as much as we want but even throwing out the 16 scoreless games with the Islanders, he’s still on pace for 9.6 goals this season over a full 82 with Calgary (EN FUEGO!). Decent player making the best of it on a bad team? More indicative of the Islanders offensive struggles this season and successes last season?
I’d like to go with the latter. It’s easy to make a big-deal about 24-goals being a big number, but maybe he was simply a product of the Islanders’ offensive hot streak last season? We still can’t be sure that the whole team’s offensive success was a flash in the pan, but here’s some food for thought. Comeau had only 8 of the 24 goals last season prior to January 1st. That’s 36 games prior to Jan 1 and 41 after which equates to 0.22 goals/game before New Year’s and 0.39 afterwards. Food for thought… But it’s hard to make sense of the statistics as it can be a chicken or the egg sort of thing. Did Comeau’s scoring come in part due to the hot streak and his teammates playing well or is it the other way around?
In other news Tim Jackman returns tonight! WHO’S EXCITED?!
PROGRAMMING NOTES
We’ve got two more Best of 2011 segments to come, probably Friday and Saturday morning. Keith will be handling the recap tonight, so feel free to shout at him talk about the game with him on Twitter.
To finish off the year, we’ll be unveiling our Best of 2011 picks here on Point Blank. We’ll nominate and then pick what we think are the best of the year in a given category and then leave the final decision up to you, our readers. Today is the second of four segments and picks the best goal of the year.
Criteria: This one’s real simple — what goal this year amazed you the most? Which one got you off your feet and cheering — from the couch?
And the nominees are…
Ryan Strome’s rookie camp shootout
Michael Grabner’s first of three in Buffalo: 2/13/11 – His first of three on the way to a hat trick.
John Tavares weaves through the St. Louis D: 3/5/11 – Tavares weaves through the Blues’ defense for possibly his most impressive goal yet.
PA Parenteau’s mid-air swat vs. Rangers: 3/15/11 – PAP swats a pass from John Tavares out of the air for a goal.
Kyle Okposo’s tic-tac-toe score: 11/23/11
Mark Streit’s shot-pass sets up Tavares: 10/15/11
The Writer’s Picks:
Kevin Schultz – Ryan Strome at rookie camp
Alan Avital – John Tavares vs. STL
Keith Quinn – John Tavares vs. STL
Your Pick:
Leave your opinions in the poll and comment section below. Polls close at midnight, January 1st.
What was the best Islanders goal of 2011?
- John Tavares vs. St. Louis (59%, 307 Votes)
- Ryan Strome's rookie camp shootout (21%, 109 Votes)
- Michael Grabner vs. Buffalo (8%, 39 Votes)
- PAP's mid-air goal (4%, 22 Votes)
- Mark Streit's shot-pass (4%, 20 Votes)
- Kyle Okposo's tic-tac-toe score (3%, 16 Votes)
- Other (1%, 6 Votes)
Total Voters: 519
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