A little bit of a groove
After a successful night of scoreboard watching, the Isles aim to keep things rolling against the Sabres
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Good Morning, Islanders Country.
I love good news to start a week. We knew JG Pageau had started skating on his own, but it was still a welcome surprise when the third-line center was a full participant at practice on Monday morning.
We don’t know if Pageau will be in the lineup tonight against the Buffalo Sabres, and we don’t know what type of impact he’ll have if he is, but it qualifies as good news, and good news keeps good vibes around this team right now.
Those vibes continued as it was a good night for scoreboard watching and a bad night for The Math™️. Three teams chasing the Isles with games in hand (Buffalo, Ottawa, and Washington) all lost in regulation. If you were to go by points percentage now and not just points, the Isles would be a playoff team with the eight-best number in the conference.
Heading into last night’s games, the Islanders had seen their playoff odds shoot up over 40% in multiple models over the last week. That’s still under 50%, but it’s also the second-highest of the teams vying for one of the two Wild Cards. We’ll get further into why this is a case in just a bit, but it reflects the impressive hockey they played during a 4-1-1 stretch without star forward Mathew Barzal.
“Injuries are always a part of the year, but whenever you get guys back in a critical time of the year, we’ve seemed to find a little bit of a groove the last couple of weeks,” Brock Nelson said after practice on Monday. “Definitely, a lot of pieces are kind of lining up right now, and you try to keep that going, get those guys back, and try to run with it and keep the ball moving.”
The Islanders have not only survived but thrived without both Pageau and Barzal, making you cautiously curious as to what would happen if they were at full strength and could maintain the level of play that has them in a groove where good things happen are expected to keep on happening.
Coming up, JGP looks pretty good at practice, and the Isles strength of schedule is favorable (or at least is supposed to be) the rest of the way. Plus, how the team is winning without Barzy, NHL Awards watch, Tom Chorske vs. Patrick Roy, and 50 years of team picture day.
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