Monthly Archives: December 2011
NEW YORK — The Islanders lost 4-2 at the Garden tonight, off some good looking shots from the Rangers and defensive breakdowns of their own volition. The breakdowns didn’t come from the defensemen, though. It was noticeably the forwards at fault, leading to a 3-1 hole heading into the third that the Islanders wouldn’t recover from.
For much of the first half of the game, the Islanders were up to the challenge and played toe-to-toe with the Rangers, despite falling behind 1-0 early. Brandon Dubinsky scored his second of the year in the first going the length of the ice, blowing by John Tavares and PA Parenteau on his way to beating Evgeni Nabokov high blocker side. If you need a ‘what not to do’ lesson on neutral zone defense, look no further than this play as Dubinsky sped through the neutral zone catching the pair of forwards flatfooted.
The Islanders responded in the second with Ryan McDonagh off for slashing, ex-Ranger PA Parenteau cashed in on a rebound of a point shot from Mark Streit. Things were going pretty well for the Islanders at that point and could have been completely different, if not for a kick save (and a beauty from Del Zotto). Midway through the second, the line of Tim Wallace, Josh Bailey and Matt Martin started off a 2-on-1 rush that ended with multiple chances and shots on net. One puck would scoot by goalie Martin Biron, being stopped only by Del Zotto at the goal line. The Rangers came back with a chance of their own, with Artem Anisimov feeding Marian Gaborik off an offensive zone face off that caught Michael Grabner napping.
“To me, the whole turning point is the face off goal,” said coach Jack Capuano. “That’s something we, as coaches, take pride in. That’s something, as coaches, we show them before the game. It was exactly the same two guys that set up against us last time and we knew it could have been coming.”
From there, the Islanders didn’t look the same, with the Rangers getting the majority of chances the rest of the period. They would make it 3-1 on a Del Zotto shot that beat a screened Nabokov five-hole.
Matt Martin, who threw out a ton of hits to add to his league-leading total, fought Stu Bickel early in the third to try and get things going.
“We had a lot of guys who stuck up for the team tonight in key situations,” said Capuano after the game, referencing Martin and Wallace.
The momentum was partially squashed by a unnecessary tripping penalty from Nino Niederreiter and things looked to be going the Rangers way until things got a bit unraveled, thanks again to Martin. A big 5-on-5 scrum occurred, with Martin and Boyle tangoing and Bickel goading Tim Wallace into a fight. For his part, Bickel got a double minor leading to an Islanders power play and Matt Moulson goal to cut the lead to 3-2.
The Islanders weren’t able to get a whole lot going late in the game though and after a bad penalty away from the puck, they found themselves killing a penalty with six minutes to go. There were one or two more chances, but nothing very strong. With a minunte and a half left, the Rangers would add an empty netter to make it 4-2.
Notes:
- Josh Bailey and Milan Jurcina (among others) throwing their bodies around is a great sight.
- Matt Moulson took a hand pass to the face in the first period. He returned soon after. No word on if his protective Moulstache helped in any way.
- Travis Hamonic is the Isles best defender right now? Travis Hamonic is the Isles best defender right now.
- Evgeni Nabokov looked good, not great. The players in front of him seemed liable for the second and third goals, but he seemed to have trouble tracking the puck on more than one occasion.
- The Islanders had their share of chances in the first half of the game. They seemed to fall off a bit when things didn’t quite go their way.
Sorry for the lack of a formal pre-game today, it’s been a really long week. I’ll be in the press box tonight at the Garden, so be sure to follow the game along with me on Twitter.
Lineup notes:
Mark Eaton has been activated from IR. To make room for him, Dylan Reese was returned to Bridgeport. Reese, as I mentioned yesterday, had been playing extremely well for the Islanders so the return could be a curious one. However, here are the clauses in the CBA that explains things a bit.
Section 3.10, l, i: A player on loan to a Club of any league affiliated with the League may be recalled from such loan under emergency conditions at any time for the duration of the emergency only following which he must be returned promptly to the club from which he was recalled.
And here’s 3.12, b:
(i) A Club recalling a Player from a minor league club, under emergency conditions, must specify on the transfer form the name of the injured, ill or suspended Player whom the Player on emergency recall is replacing.
(ii) When an emergency condition terminates, the Club must submit a transfer form indicating whether the Player’s status has converted to regular recall or is assigned to his minor league club.
So here’s what that said. This is a neat trick in the CBA and smart move from the Islanders. It’s also something the Islanders have been doing with a lot of their call ups this season. If the Islanders can prove to the league that their active roster has less than 20 healthy players (not hard to do, especially with a lot of hurt players not being put on IR) then they can bring up a player on what is called ‘emergency recall.’ Remember, if a player is hurt and not on IR they’re still on the active roster but does not count towards the 20 for emergency recall purposes.
Why they’re called up on emergency recall instead of a regular recall is because that exempts the player from having to pass through waivers. The Islanders have done this with Calvin de Haan and some of the young kids for some reason (de Haan, for example, is exempt from waivers) but they’ve also done it with Tim Wallace and Dylan Reese who are waiver eligible. Reese had one year of waiver exemption, which is why he was up and down so much last year. Now that’s expired and how he gets up and down is trickier. Of course there’s a good chance Reese would pass through waivers anyway but there’s no reason not to be safe, especially with all the injuries and lack of defensive depth.
There’s one other important point and it’s that on emergency recall, Reese was specifically replacing a player. In this case, that was Eaton. When Eaton returned, Reese either had to be either returned to Bridgeport or placed on regular recall, as happened to Tim Wallace earlier in the year. That would mean Reese would take up an extra roster spot if staying with the team and would be exposed to waivers on his way back down, if the Islanders later chose to send him back down.
The Islanders have announced that Al Montoya and David Ullstrom, both injured last night in Winnipeg, are out indefinitely with concussions. There is no timetable for their return. That makes six Islanders afflicted with a concussion at some point this season. Seven, if you count Bridgeport’s Rhett Rakhshani. Micheal Haley and Anders Nilsson have been recalled from Bridgeport.
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The NHL has been hard after illegal hits, especially of the noggin-slamming variety. There’s been a noticeable up-tick in concussions this year (in my mind the jury is still out on sample size vs. actual world-ending epidemic, fwiw) and the league has Shanabanned players, as necessary. If and when this gets under control, the next logical step in the game should be the protection of goaltenders.
Earlier in the year, Jordin Tootoo launched himself into Ryan Miller, earning a two-game suspension in the process. Tootoo’s play to the net — up until the point of launch — looked pretty similar to Evander Kane’s charge into Al Montoya last night. There are a lot of differences after that point, though. Milan Jurcina didn’t leave any room for Kane to skate in front of Montoya (not that he necessarily should have) and unlike Tootoo, Kane didn’t do a jumping Rough Ryder into Al’s face. Last night on Twitter, I opined that the play wouldn’t go to Shanahan’s office if Montoya didn’t receive a concussion in a round about way of saying it was suspension worthy. I’ll back off those statements now, as on review it really wasn’t quite that bad and all three players were essentially holding their groun. But if the NHL does eventually feel like protecting it’s goalies — the league should, shouldn’t it? — more than a two-minute penalty will have to be the result. Not necessarily a suspension, but I don’t have any doubts that Kane would change a thing if he knew the result of barreling into Montoya was only a two minute penalty.
As for Montoya, both he and David Ullstrom were cleared to fly back with the team after last night’s game (per Newsday). Ullstrom went oddly into the boards towards the end of last night’s overtime. I’d imagine the pair will be re-evaluated today and we can expect Nabby-time on Thursday at the Garden as a general precaution of sitting Montoya, regardless of the severity of Montoya’s injury.
DYLAN REESE; QUIETLY PLAYING QUALITY DEFENSE
Since being recalled from Bridgeport on December 1st, Dylan Reese has played nine games for the Isles and has a 1-1-2 line and is -3. Nothing special, right? Well, actually he has been. He’s been quietly special. Aside from the goal, he’s gone mostly unnoticed most nights while paired with Mike Mottau. But Reese has been quiet in a good way. His mistakes have been few and not particularly glaring, as hasn’t quite been the case with other defenders (ahem). He’s not lighting up his competition but for a third pairing d-man who started the year in the NHL, quietly good will do just fine thank you.
Reese has the best relative corsi out of the team’s defenders so far this season, although 9 games is a small sample and potentially skewed by the team’s 4-3-2 record during that stretch. Nonetheless, he clocks in at a 15 corsi, well ahead of Mark Streit’s 5 as the only two defenders with positive numbers (ignoring Calvin de Haan’s hilarious and insignificant 51.9 in his one game).
If you’re not sure what corsi is, it’s basically a much better version of the +/- stat. Arctic Ice Hockey explains:
In a nutshell, the Corsi Number is the shot differential while a player was on the ice. This includes not just goals and shots on goal, but also shots that miss the net, and in some formulations, blocked shots. In other words, it’s the differential in the total number of shots directed at the net.
So, Reese’s number can certainly be due to the team’s better play of late, with his teammate’s corsi numbers taking a beating during November — of this it’s hard to be sure without the corsi numbers for only December, something that’s way above my pay grade. All those caveats aside, it’s still refreshing to see Reese’s play backed up with actual stats. A 15 corsi is pretty solid, regardless of how his teammates numbers may be skewed. And remember, Reese has been paired with Mike Mottau, probably the team’s worst defender this season. Mottau finishes second to last in the corsi ratings with -4.1. One final caveat but this one is probably a given, as Reese and Mottau are the team’s third defensive pairing their relative corsis that show the quality of competition is pretty low. Not surprisingly, Travis Hamonic, Mark Streit and Steve Staios have the high numbers there. That means that they’re usually going against much better opposing lines.
Update: Keith, our resident advanced stats expert, has a bit more detail on what corsi is:
Corsi is a proxy for “puck possession” the more shots you’re taking (of any kind) the less the opposition has the puck.
The first few minutes of this one fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.
Frans Nielsen had a couple of uncharacteristic turnovers early on…the second of which left him reaching for the puck with his head down and a giant “crush me” sign on his chest. So that’s just what Mark Stuart did. In a welcome bit of toughness and leadership, linemate Kyle Okposo tracked Stuart down and challenged him only to engage in several seconds of wrasslin’ leaving Okposo still in search of his first fighting major as the two received coincidental roughing minors.
From that point on, the Islanders were wide awake and took control of the play for most of the rest of the period.
The first line of Tavares, Moulson and Parenteau were everywhere all night (15 of the Isles 33 shots) and got the scoring started. Parenteau took a good hit to chip a puck up to Tavares in the neutral zone. Tavares gained the zone, pulled up, sent the puck down low to Moulson who sent a pass across the top of the crease that found Parenteau hustling to catch up to the play. He batted it past Ondrej Pavelec for his 5th of the season.
The Jets would tie the game late in the first as Nik Antropov tipped a Johnny Oduya point shot past Montoya.
The second was played pretty evenly between the two teams who each added another goal. The Winnipeg connection of Travis Hamonic and Michael Grabner (Manitoba Moose AHL) gave the Isles the lead back at 3:53. Hamonic sent a wrister into a crowd that squirted through to Pavelec’s right (off Zach Bogosian’s foot) where Grabner was standing all alone with a gaping net for his 10th of the year.
Six minutes later, the Jets would tie it up when Andrew Ladd fired a wrist shot through what appeared to be a screen by both Dylan Reese and Nik Antropov (1st star). The Isles struggled to find a way to contain Antropov as much as the Jets struggled to find a way to contain the Tavares line.
With 1:20 left in the 2nd, Evander Kane pushed a puck past Mark Streit on the right wing boards, speeded around him and cut to the net. Milan Jurcina cut the angle at the crease and made contact with Kane who launched himself through Al Montoya knocking him out of the game. Kane was given a two minute goaltender interference on the play. The Islander goalie curse continues. The broadcast noted that this is the 6th time this season the Islanders have used multiple goalies in a game, tied for the league lead with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Montoya did not return to the bench for the third period, and Jack Capuano did not have any additional information on his status in the post game interview.
The third period was pretty well dominated by the Jets as they outshot the Isles 14-9 and seemed to have a ton of possession time in the Isles zone. The Islanders did generate some quality chances as Tavares hit the crossbar and Nino Niederreiter was stoned by Pavelec, but the real story was Evgeni Nabokov’s stellar relief of The Big Cubano making 19 saves in the remainder of the game.
Overtime saw chances exchanged by both sides, but during the extra time, the Isles would lose yet another key contributor in David Ullstrom. As Ullstrom attempted to hit Andrew Ladd in the defensive zone, Ladd turned and Ullstom caught his elbow in the chin, which spun Ullstrom and he hit his head on the top of the boards and stayed down on the ice for a minute or two. Ullstrom did leave under his own power, but didn’t return to the game and his status was also unknown.
On to the skill competition.
Parenteau scored on a speed rush with a wrist shot high to Pavelec’s glove side and Frans did the Frans. Forehand fake, backhand top shelf, leaving Pavelec to have to get a drink from somewhere else. Frans Nielsen, destroyer of water bottles, breaker of hearts, crusher of souls. Nabakov came up big on saves on Blake Wheeler and Kyle Wellwood (a beautiful left pad last second kick out) to gain his first win since October 15th against the Rangers.
Another win streak begins…
Noticings:
- Travis Hamonic had a far better game than the first outing against the Jets. His early big hits (5 total) help set a physical tone and he blocked seven shots, had the assist and was a +1 for the many friends and family he had at the game. Great night for the kid.
- Kyle Okposo looked like an NHL enforcer squaring off and dropping the bucket before his
fightroughing. Leave it on though next time…also, more of that fire Kyle. Do it right, do it smartly and do it for your smaller line mates. Also, he was a beast this evening as well. Battling on the boards and winning a lot. - Nabokov came in cold and the groin held up. He looked great in the shootout too.
- Another game that Mottau and Reese were not a liability as a pairing. I still don’t trust it 100%, but they have both stepped their play up lately and that’s to be commended.
- Mark Streit had yet another un-Streit-like game with a few turnovers and getting roasted wide on the play that Montoya was run over on. If he is getting worn down from high minutes, this team will have some problems. Unfortunately, there are few options to take that burden off of him.
- If there is any substantial time lost for the latest injury brigade, there may be some replacement problems as DiBenedetto, Colliton and Gillies have been injured. We may see another chance for Rakhshani or Haley. Look for Poulin to get another shot if Montoya is out.
Rangers on Thursday…get your rivalry on!
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