Good Morning, Islanders Country.
There are no easy games in the NHL - even if an opponent’s record and injured list indicate otherwise, as it did Saturday. The Islanders needed another third-period comeback, this time after falling behind for the third time in the game.
The Columbus Blue Jackets (missing seven regulars) found themselves up 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2, and each time the Isles answered back, winning the game on Zach Parise’s OT winner 39 seconds into the extra session.
“We feel we can come back from any deficit,” said Parise after the game. That might be true, but it’s not a position you want to put yourself in night after night.
The team feels confident in those situations, but it would serve the well not to make it a prolonged habit. It’s just not sustainable. The Islanders have allowed the first goal in 11 of their 16 games this season but have managed a 5-6-0 record in those games thanks to scoring 26 goals in the third period, just one fewer than the 27 they’ve scored in the first and second periods combined.
“I think when we have a little bit of desperation, and we’re down, we find another level, said Ryan Pulock. “I think maybe it’s a bit of a mindset of getting to that level sooner and playing that way the whole night.”
If the Islanders can find a way to play desperate hockey early, they might avoid having to play desperate hockey late.
Coming up, the Isles prepare for an earlier start in Ottawa, and the Isles third pair was second to none on Saturday night. Plus, ‘Double Chili’ revisited, Mathew Barzal hits a helper mark last reached by Pierre Turgeon and the fastest goal for a birthday boy in NHL history.
Let’s dive in.
📰 NEWS: The Islanders held a fully attended practice on Sunday ahead of boarding a flight to Ottawa for tonight’s game against the 5-8-1 Senators on Monday Night. The Sens are led by Brady Tkachuk, who has six goals and 13 assists on the season.
◾️Ottawa is coming off a 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday night. D.J. Smith’s team has been without talented forward Josh Norris after he suffered a serious shoulder injury in late October.
◾️ Ilya Sorokin was reportedly the first goalie off the ice at practice, a sign that he’ll be back between the pipes for the third straight.
It’s usually a good thing if your third defense pair isn’t the story after the game. It means they didn’t do anything to lose the game. On Saturday night, the Isles wouldn’t have won without Scott Mayfield and Sebastian Aho.
Mayfield hasn’t been a goal-scorer throughout his career, but his four through the first 16 games is just one shy off his career-high. Yet, when he has scored goals in the past, they have often displayed a bit of offensive flair and a sneaky good shot. At 12:51 of the third, he showcased a backhand to tie the game.
On the play, Aho stood at the blue line and kept the puck from leaving the zone with his right skate, absorbing a big hit in the process. As Thomas Hickey said in the post-game (isn’t he good?), it’s the type of play that endears a player to his teammates. That allowed the Islanders to maintain possession and led to Mayfield's goal.
In The Athletic, Kevin Kurz goes into more detail on Aho’s steady improvement this season that has given him a hold on the sixth defenseman spot.
Here’s one excerpt from Aho:
“You’ve got an easy play up the wall but you’re trying to pass for a breakaway, the other team gets it, they go the other way, and we end up in the D-zone — I think especially at the start of last year, I kind of had a bad habit of trying to do that,” Aho said last week. “I’ve gotten better at that, of just making the right play. … You’ve just got to read the game sometimes, when it’s not the right moment.”
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders begin a four-game road trip tonight (or late this afternoon) against the Ottawa Senators. Puck drop is on the earlier side, at 5:30 p.m. Why you ask? Daniel Alfredsson is being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame tonight, and a viewing party is scheduled for the arena after the game.
📊 STANDINGS:
🌶🌶 Double Chili: Sunday was the 43rd anniversary of the infamous 10-5 Islanders win over the New York Rangers, dubbed the “Double Chili” game.
There was an ongoing promotion that if the Isles scored six goals, fans would win a free bowl of Wendy’s chili. Since the Isles had a 6-2 lead halfway through the game, a Wendy’s executive in attendance declared that his establishment would provide two bowls of chili if the Isles reached double-digits. Denis Potvin scored the 10th goal in the third period, and mouths were fed throughout Long Island.
📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, Brock Nelson is the first Islander since John Tavares (1-22-2017 vs. Philadelphia) to have ten shots on goal in the game. Nobody has had more since Wendel Clark had 11 on December 21, 1995, in Dallas. Mathew Barzal has twelve assists in the last eleven games (0-12-12); he is the first Islander since Pierre Turgeon (1992-93) to have at least sixteen assists in the first 16 games.
🗓 THIS DATE IN ISLANDERS HISTORY: On November 14, 2009, Tim Jackman celebrated his 28th birthday and set an NHL record by scoring 16 seconds into the game against the Flordia Panthers, the fastest goal ever by a player on his birthday. Jackman, Trent Hunter, John Tavares, and Kyle Okposo all scored, and Dwayne Roloson stopped 38 shots for the Islanders in a 5-4 shootout loss after rallying from down 4-2 in the third.
🔗 Islanders slow starts providing caveat to early-season success by Joe Pantorno, am New York “It’s becoming commonplace for the Islanders, who are 10-6-0 through their first 16 games of the season, sitting in second place in the Metropolitan Division as they embark on a four-game road trip beginning Monday night in Ottawa against the Senators.”
🔗 Islanders surviving despite playing from behind by Andrew Gross, Newsday “Continually having to rally is probably not a sustainable model for success as the Islanders look to return to the playoffs after last season’s miss. But it is a decided improvement over last season, when they went 8-25-4 after the opponent scored first.”
And we leave you with this…It was Hockey Fights Cancer Night, and during the first period, there was a beautiful and moving moment when fans all stood up and held out signs with the names of those in their lives who have been impacted by cancer.
Before the game, the team paid tribute to former Islanders Clark Gillies, Mike Bossy, and Jean Potvin. It's always a touching moment, and hockey does a great job of bringing awareness to the cause each season.
Thanks for reading! Follow us on Twitter for regular updates until the next newsletter.
And please check out our newsletters about the Knicks and Mets, too.
.....there's NO denying it - they got a bit LUCKY on Saturday night against Columbus (who is gonna be a MONSTER - no PUN intended - once everyone's back) and the EXTREMELY-frustrating game against Phoenix, really exposed just HOW vulnerable they'll CONTINUE to be without a RELIABLE 'gamebreaker' (yeah, Nelly COULD be that, but - still TOO soon to tell.....)