Good Morning, Islanders Country.
UBS Arena had its first great moment but is still waiting for its first win. Noah Dobson’s game-tying goal with four seconds left shook “The Stable,” but the emotional lift wasn’t enough to shake the losing streak.
The skid stands at 11 after falling 3-2 in a shootout to the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday Night. The Islanders haven’t won in a month, overshadowing the modest three-game point streak that has them holding on to optimism.
Coming up, a new fancy stat the baseball enthusiasts will appreciate, a sensational 78 seconds for an ex-Islander turned head coach, Oliver Wahlstrom makes history (twice) in Motown and the details on our latest subscriber giveaway. But first, a recap of last night’s action.
Let’s dive in.
🏒 IN SHORT: Patrick Kane scored the only goal in the shootout, roofing a puck over Seymon Varlamov, as the Blackhawks beat the Islanders 3-2, handing the Isles their 11th straight loss overall (0-8-3) and keeping them winless at their new arena (0-4-2).
Dobson scored his first goal of the season with four seconds left in the third period to send the game into overtime, as the Isles secured a point in their third straight game. Marc-Andre Fleury made 22 saves and went unbeaten in the shootout for his 499th career win. With his next victory, Fleury will join Martin Brodeur (691) and Patrick Roy (551) as the only goaltenders to win 500 games in the NHL.
Brandon Hagel opened the scoring on the power play at 6:49 in the first period after an Alex DeBrincat slap shot deflected off Hagel’s knee and past Varlamov. J.G. Pageau and Dylan Strome each scored their second goal of the season, Mathew Barzal tallied a pair of assists, and Varlamov made 24 saves in the loss.
🔑 KEY MOMENT(s):
🔷 The Islanders power-play that scored twice on Saturday converted again on Sunday as the soft shot from Sebastian Aho was re-directed by Pageau for only his second goal of the season, tying the game at 1-1.
🔶 They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, and all those words could be explicit looking at this one. If it wasn’t obvious, the confidence is at an all-time low for the orange and blue and Barzal displayed it perfectly when he opted to pass the puck with Fleury out of position and a wide-open net.
🔻 In a good defensive position, Aho’s play on the puck inadvertently set up Strome who had just come off the bench to send a one-timer over the glove of Varlamov and give Chicago a 2-1 lead.
🔷 Barry Trotz pulled Varlamov in the final minute and after a flurry of shots and a desperate push to find the back of the net, Dobson grips it and rips it to beat Fleury with just four seconds to go in the third period and sends the game into overtime. The 21-year-old is the seventh Islander and second defenseman in franchise history to score a tying goal in the final five seconds of regulation.
🔻 Good luck stopping this shot. Kane slows it down in the shootout, stickhandling the puck 1… 2… 3… 4… a lot of times before he snaps one over the left shoulder of Varlamov, scoring the only goal of the shootout.
3 REACTIONS
❶ GROWING UP: “In the last couple of weeks we've had some guys go down and we've been playing shorthanded a bit. I've tried to elevate and step up,” Dobson said. “As a d-core as a whole, that's what we've tried to do. We're missing a few guys back there so just continue to do that and play with confidence.” Trotz added that “Sometimes you have to grow up real quick in tough situations,” when referring to Dobson who played a career-high 26:14 (one night after playing a career-high 24:18).
❷ SHOWS A LOT: “The last two nights we're down a puck and going through what we have in the last couple of weeks here, it shows a lot about the group, they didn't give up, they went right to the end,” said Trotz.
❸ THE RIGHT DIRECTION: “We've been doing some good things in the last three games,” Pageau said. “We want that extra point, but we're building right now. I think our game is going in the right direction. You see, when you score like that at the end, that the team is ready to play a full 60. Everyone showed up tonight. [Varlamov] kept us in the game and gave us a chance to get that extra goal. [Dobson] was everywhere tonight on the ice. To get that goal was huge for us.”
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders make their way back to Canada on Tuesday to take on the Ottawa Senators, before returning home to host the Nashville Predators on Thursday, December 9th at UBS Arena.
📊 STANDINGS: Tack on another point for the Isles, but they remain bottom dwellers in the juggernaut Metropolitan Division.
📰 NEWS: Taking Matt Martin’s spot on the fourth line, Ross Johnston played in his first game since logging just 5:50 in the season-opening 6-3 loss in Carolina on October 14th. He finished Sunday’s contest with 11:09 of ice time over 17 shifts.
With Casey Cizikas the only Islander remaining in COVID-19 protocol, there were a series of roster moves including Austin Czarnik joining the varsity squad and Grant Hutton and Andy Andreoff returning to the Bridgeport Islanders.
🧢 CY YOUNG: If you’re thinking to yourself, “I thought this was a hockey newsletter,” don’t worry it still is. There’s a relatively new stat in the advanced analytics world called “Cy Young,” which in its simplest terms via dobberhockey.com means “players whose stat lines resemble a star baseball pitcher who has many more wins than losses. In hockey, that would be considerably more goals than assists. Among the majority of hockey players, the opposite is true, given the frequency of goals that have second assists.”
Shayna Goldman of Sportsnet and The Athletic writes about some of the Cy Young leaders in the 2021-22 season, and the Islanders Brock Nelson lands in the top-eight.
📚 SOUND SMART: In Wednesday’s 4-3 OT loss in Detroit, Oliver Wahlstrom became the first player in Islander history to score two power-play goals and get in a fight in the same game. He is also the first Islander to score at least two goals and have at least 17 penalty minutes in a game.
🗓 ISLE REMEMBER: With former Islander Derek King behind the bench for the Blackhawks, last night was an opportunity to look back at his three goals in 78 seconds performance on October 15th, 1991 versus the Pittsburgh Penguins.
🔗 Islanders’ Oliver Wahlstrom ‘became a really good teammate’ vs. Detroit by Ethan Sears, NY Post: “The Islanders coach chose to highlight Wahlstrom dropping the gloves with Detroit’s Adam Erne after the Red Wings left winger leveled Anthony Beauvillier in the first period of an eventual 4-3 Detroit win. “He stepped in and became a really good teammate at that point,” Trotz said prior to Sunday’s game against the Blackhawks. “If he is emotionally involved, he is a much better player.”
🔗 Semyon Varlamov gets a chance to build his game in Sunday's start vs. Chicago by Andrew Gross, Newsday: “A desperate push for wins to save a team’s flagging playoff chances might entice a coach to rely heavily on a hot goalie. Barry Trotz certainly has one putting together consistently strong performances in Ilya Sorokin. But December’s condensed schedule effectively forces the Islanders coach into more of a goalie rotation after leaning on his No. 1 netminder-in-the-making through the first quarter of the season.”
And we leave you with this …. we’re doing yet another giveaway this week. One subscriber will win a 12 x 12 framed Brian D. Oaks print. If you’re reading this as a subscriber, you’re already entered. If not, just subscribe for a chance to win this and future giveaways.
To purchase and see other works, including one of the Old Barn, visit HERE.
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