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Good Morning, Islanders Country.
The Islanders have seemed destined to finish 5th in the Metro and 9th in the Eastern Conference for weeks. After sweeping a home and home with Columbus Blue Jackets, the Isles have now caught each of the three teams ahead of them since they sat dead last following the team’s 11 game winless streak in November/December.
It’s a far cry from the expectations at the start of the year, but it is part of the ‘finish strong’ attitude and mantra the team has projected in recent weeks. Considering where they were and what they’ve been through, being the best of the teams not in the playoffs is a small victory in a big disappointment of a season.
Coming up, the NHL was seeing double on Thursday and how Palms has been expecting the unexpected. Plus, Denis Potvin’s final regular-season home game and a milestone birthday for “The Hockey Maven.” But first, a recap of last night’s win at home vs Columbus.
Let’s dive in.
🏒 IN SHORT: The Islanders completed a sweep of a home-and-home versus the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday with a 5-2 win at UBS Arena. Kyle Palmieri’s goal at 3:16 of the third period broke a 2-2 tie and Mat Barzal’s breakaway goal extended the lead to 4-2. Ryan Pulock scored an empty-net goal with 57 seconds left. Sebastian Aho and Oliver Wahlstrom scored 11 seconds apart in the first period and Semyon Varlamov made 30 saves for the Islanders (30-27-9). Emil Bemstrom and Justin Danforth scored for the Blue Jackets (32-31-5) to tie things after two. Elvis Merzlikins made 31 saves in the loss.
🔑 KEY MOMENT(s):
🔷 11 seconds after Sebastian Aho’s first of the year gave the Isles a 1-0 lead, Mat Barzal backhanded a pass up to Zach Parise who raced down the left side and drew attention of all Blue Jackets before feeding a pass to Oliver Wahlstrom for his 13th goal of the season and a 2-0 first period lead.
🔶 There’s top shelf and then there’s this goal. After Columbus scored twice in the second to tie the game, Kyle Palmieri’s perfectly placed shot over the right shoulder of Elvis Merzļikins reclaimed the lead for the Isles at 3:16 of the third.
🔷 A Blue Jacket turnover at the blueline allowed Mat Barzal to tip forward the puck and then use his speed to split two defenders and score on the breakaway to extend the Isles’ lead to 4-2 at the 9:52 mark of the third period.
3 REACTIONS
❶ NO QUIT: “Let’s just win the day. They are a group of men who just want to play good hockey. There’s never been any quit,” said Barry Trotz. “There’s no quit in the group, there’s hasn’t been all year, there’s been at times some frustration but there’s never been any quit.”
❷ READY FOR IT: "We're professionals here and at the end of the day, we're building towards something that's bigger than catching Columbus or anything,” said Mat Barzal. “We're building towards building a Stanley Cup. Whenever that time comes to get that opportunity, we're just trying to be ready for it.”
❸ MATURITY: "Our response in the third was good," Barry Trotz said. "It was mature. We got [a goal] right off the bat. We got back to straight-line hockey, put the puck in play, made plays off of shots in traffic. We made good decisions at the red line and the blue line."
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders are back on the ice on Friday night to battle the surging New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Puck drop is 7 PM.
📊 STANDINGS:
📰 NEWS: Goaltender Ilya Sorokin was back on the ice prior to the Islanders’ optional morning skate on Thursday working with Semyon Varlamov and Cory Schneider but did not participate in the main practice. It seems unlikely that we will be treated to a Sorokin - Shesterkin rematch at MSG on Friday.
◾️ Defenseman Robin Salo was an emergency recalled from Bridgeport, but did not play as Trotz went with Sebastian Aho and Grant Hutton as the third pair.
◾️Adam Pelech’s status was in question before the game after taking a shot to his hand Tuesday in Columbus, but he was deemed good-to-go and picked up his career-high 21st assist of the season.
🤯 DOUBLE TAKE: The Sebastian Aho’s of the NHL have had two very different careers. One is an All-Star from Finland, the other, is a Swede trying to stick in the NHL. The two have played each other in the past and even committed an Aho on Aho penalty once, but what they accomplished on Thursday is the stuff of legend. Considering that the Isles’ Aho had only two goals in 52 career games going into Thursday, the chances of both Aho’s scoring on the same night were slim (although it happened once before on March 18, 2021!). The odds to score seconds apart the same night? Impossible. But that’s what they did.
🚨 7:14:40 pm ET Sebastian Aho scores for the Islanders
🚨 7:15:14 pm ET Sebastian Aho scores for the Hurricanes
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📈 WHAT TO EXPECT: Drive4Five did a deep dive on expected goals to explain Kyle Palmieri’s weird season. Expected Goals (xG) is a model-based metric used to isolate the evaluation of play-driving and chance-creation/suppression ability from things a player cannot control such as bounces, quality of goaltender, etc.
Palmieri has been remarkably consistent at generating scoring chances this season. His cumulative expected goals have climbed at a steady rate all year. His goals? Not so much. But regression comes for even the farthest of outliers, and Palmieri’s second half scoring is an excellent example of this.
The below chart featured in the article shows the consistency in Palm’s season when it comes to generating scoring chances as his expected goal total has been on a steady climb this season. It’s only in the second half that his actual goals have started to catch up - and that continued on Thursday night.
📚 SOUND SMART: Sebastian Aho and Oliver Wahlstrom scored 11 seconds apart, marking the fastest two goals by the Islanders since Jan. 5, 2019 (Jordan Eberle & Johnny Boychuk in 0:11). Josh Bailey's assist was his 544th point, tying John Tonelli for 8th place in club history. Adam Pelech's assists was his 99th NHL while Mathew Barzal is now two points shy of 300.
🗓 ISLE REMEMBER: On March 31, 1988, Islanders captain Denis Potvin played in his 542nd and final, regular-season home game at Nassau Coliseum in a 7-3 win over the Washington Capitals that all but clinched the Patrick Division.
Before the game, Potvin received two milestone awards for 1,000 points and 1,000 games played from N.H.L. president John Ziegler. As the last 90 seconds ticked down, the crowd chanted "Den-ny, Den-ny" in anticipation of the postgame celebration.
🔗 Matt Martin revels in his longevity as an Islander by Andrew Gross, Newsday ““It’s special,” said Martin, originally from Windsor, Ontario. “Long Island has become my home. We wanted to start our family here. It’s a place that’s very special with me, to give me my first opportunity. I was fortunate enough after my stint in Toronto (2016-18) to get the opportunity to come back. A lot of guys when they end up on a different team, don’t ever get that opportunity again.”
🔗 Noah Dobson’s ceiling continuing to rise as 40-point benchmark approaches by Joe Pantorno, AMNY “The top prospect turned top blueliner of the future has taken the rare chance of being a young player and getting playing time afforded to him — more out of necessity — by GM Lou Lamoriello and head coach Barry Trotz and has run with it; especially as of late.”
And we leave you with this ….a milestone birthday for the Maven! The legendary Stan Fischler turned 90 on Thursday and was celebrated by joining the ESPN+ booth for the broadcast and having a night out with fellow hockey sportswriters.
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