Good Morning, Islanders Country.
If you watched until the end, you saw something you hadn’t seen in 7,762 days. Then again, perhaps you weren’t even born the last time it happened. Unfortunately, Big Z’s big moment was one of the few feel-good footnotes from Thursday night’s 6-3 loss in Pittsburgh.
The final score is misleading, but there is no escaping that the Islanders played a sloppy and sometimes soft game against their division rivals. Not only that, but their mistakes came at the most inopportune times, with the Penguins top scorers, Jake Guentzel and Sidney Crosby, on the ice to take advance of misplays and miscues against a helpless Ilya Sorokin. The Penguins now have 11 wins and points in 15 of its last 17 against the Isles.
Coming up, Oliver Wahlstrom doesn’t play, but does get to watch video with Barry Trotz. Plus, Zdeno Chara scores his first goal for the Isles in a very long time, Chris Osgood sets a games-played record and an Islanders prospect ties his team’s franchise scoring record.
Let’s dive in.
🏒 IN SHORT: Jake Guentzel scored twice, Sidney Crosby added a goal as the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Islanders 6-3 on Thursday night to clinch a playoff berth for the 16th straight season. Tristan Jarry made 36 saves for the Penguins (43-22-11) and Danton Heinen scored his career-high 16th. Zach Parise scored for the second consecutive game for the Islanders (34-30-9). Anders Lee collected his first goal in 10 games and Zdeno Chara scored his first of the season. Ilya Sorokin stopped 22 shots [BOX].
🔑 KEY MOMENT(s):
🔻 Trailing 1-0 after Kris Letang gave Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead 4:59 into the game, Dante Heinen stepped out of the penalty box and was sent on a breakaway and beat Ilya Sorokin for his 16th of the season and a 2-0 Penguins lead.
🔷 The Islanders had a much better second period highlighted by Mat Barzal slamming the breaks, cutting to the middle, and feeding Zach Parise for a one-timer to pull the Islanders within a goal at 2-1 at the 5:51 mark.
🔻 Leading 3-1 in the third, Jake Guentzel and Sidney Crosby found themselves with a 2-on-0 against Sorokin after a bad change. After back and forth passes, Crosby was able to convert to extend the lead to 4-1.
3 REACTIONS
❶ TOO EASY: "First period we were soft we were too easy to play against," Head Coach Barry Trotz said. "We gave up odd-man rushes we got beat off the walls, we were just playing shinny and you can't do that. We were only down a pocket and we had a power play. We didn't we didn't get anything on the power play.’
❷ WHAT A RUSH: "They're great rush team," Anders Lee said. "Too many odd man rushes against tonight and against the skilled team like that you can see the way they can finish their opportunities. Just too many of those tonight and that gave us a hole that we had to get out of."
❸ FINALLY GOT ONE: "It's always nice to score a goal in the NHL," Zdeno Chara said. "Way too many opportunities where I kind of hit a crossbar or post this season. To finally get one, too bad it wasn't earlier or a better time in the game. Hopefully the next one is going to help us win a hockey game."
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders are right back at it on Friday night as they travel north of the border to battle the Canadiens in Montreal. Puck drop is 7 PM.
📊 STANDINGS:
📰 NEWS: In a move that would’ve happened Tuesday if Kieffer Bellows didn’t fall ill, Barry Trotz made Oliver Wahlstrom a healthy scratch on Thursday in favor of Bellows after playing just 8:27 in the Isles’ 5-4 SO victory at UBS Arena.
◾️ NOT SHARP: Following the morning skate, Trotz said he watched the film with Wahlstrom to dissect his recent play and cited mental fatigue as one of the drivers of his recent lackluster play. The 21-year-old has played in 66 games this season after nine and 44 the previous two.
◾️MENTALLY TIRED: “A lot of times, it’s nothing physical,” Trotz said. “It’s just a little bit of mental fatigue. Sometimes when you’re mentally a little bit tired, you’re not as sharp and you’re reacting just a little bit slow
Islanders prospect William Dufour (49G, 56A) tied Jonathan Huberdeau’s Saint John’s (QMJHL) franchise points record of 105 set in 2012 last night with this assist in the team’s 8-4 win over the Charlotte Islanders. Dufour has seven more regular-season games to eclipse Huberdeau’s mark that stood for 10 years.
We posed this question to our Twitter followers on Thursday:
Besides the Rangers, who is the Islanders’ biggest rival?
With 1,051 total votes, 53.1% picked the Pittsburgh Penguins with the Toronto Maple Leafs at 19.7% and the Washington Capitals close by at 19.3%. Another 8% selected “Other” with many citing the Tampa Bay Lightning as their top choice after consecutive playoff series defeats.
I was a bit surprised the Penguins ran away with it. There have been three recent playoff series (2013, 2019, and 2021) along with Fight Night in 2011, but there’s Barry Trotz’s presence with the Capitals along with playoff series in 2015 and 2020. The Leafs have the John Tavares “pajama boy” dynamic, but there’s also the hard-fought 2002 playoff series which included Darcy Tucker’s hit on Michael Peca and the Islanders eliminating the Toronto from the 2007 playoffs with Doobie’s poke-check.Rivals or not, we’ll all root for any of these teams if/when they play the New York Rangers in a few weeks.
📚 SOUND SMART: Zdeno Chara’s goal with 1:08 left to play in the game was his first goal in 437 days and the first goal as a member of the Islanders in 7,762 days. That goal also came in Pittsburgh, but at Mellon Arena on January 12, 2001. We couldn’t find a video of that goal, but Chara did fight Matthew Barnaby late in the third period.
🗓 ISLE REMEMBER: On April 14, 2002, Islanders goaltender Chris Osgood set a team record for most games in one season, when he played in his 66th of the year, breaking the mark of 65 games set by Ron Hextall in 1993-94.
🎧 Parise Producing and Providing Leadership for Islanders by Cory Wright “Parise is enjoying a quality first season with the Islanders, with 13 goals and 18 assists in 72 games - making him the only Islanders player to appear in every game this season. Even at 37, Parise hasn't shown any signs of slowing down and signed a one-year extension with the Islanders back on March 2.”
🔗 Oliver Wahlstrom scratched for Islanders' game vs. Penguins by Neil Best, Newsday “Barry Trotz’s simmering concern over Oliver Wahlstrom’s play came to a boil on Thursday when he scratched the young forward for the Islanders’ game against the Penguins, replacing him with Kieffer Bellows.”
And we leave you with this ….spellcheck was needed on the latest NHL on TNT promo.
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.