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Good Morning, Islanders Country.
Are there such things as good loser points? The Islanders have more of them than any team in the NHL, but of the nine, this one may have been their best.
Playing the second half of a back-to-back, the Isles didn’t have their A or even B game for most of last night's game in DC. However, unlike in Montreal, the Isles were able to hang around after two periods and gave themselves a chance to get even in the third period, which they did on Anders Lee’s goal.
A miscommunication during a change led to Noah Dobson taking an unfortunate penalty early in O.T., setting the Caps with a 4-on-3 power play. Washington’s powerplay has struggled all season long, but Dylan Strome beat Semyon Varlamov's blocker side from the high slot for the game-winner.
“We got better as the game went on, but our start wasn’t good enough. We have to fix that in these back-to-back situations. We stuck with it and found a way to tie the game up. We got another good goaltending performance like we usually do every night.”
- Lane Lambert
Of those loser point games, only one other, the Oct. 20 loss to NJ, came after the Isles tied the game in the third. Yet, in that game, they allowed four powerplay goals, so there was still a cloud hanging over that effort.
The Isles now have nine overtime/shootout losses, the most through 32 games in their history (seven in 2009-10). It matches their total all of last season. The only other comparable stretches is10 ties through the first 32 games of the season in 1973-74 and 9 ties in 1985-86.
Hockey is about collecting points and points percentage. The Isles have skated off “losers” after 17 of the 32 games but are seventh in the conference points percentage (.609). Would you feel better if their record was 17-12-5? Maybe, but they’d be in the same place in the standings.
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