Good Morning, Islanders Country.
“The hockey gods just didn't bless us tonight,” said Barry Trotz in the post-game. I think that comment could be extended to the whole season. To be fair, I’m not even sure if the hockey gods have been tuning in this year. Maybe they had Comcast?
Good teams having strong seasons find ways to win without their best effort, the mediocre teams find ways to lose - or not pick up a second point - and there has been plenty of the latter this season for the Islanders. In their 47th game, they had a season-best 47 shots (80 attempts!) but didn’t come away with two points.
Looking for good news? Isles now have a four-game point streak (2-0-2). After the game, the players talked about taking the positives out of the game and how they deserved a better fate. Perhaps that’s what the rest of this season will be about, bottling up as much good as you can to build optimism moving forward.
Coming up, Big Z celebrates his record-setting game by dropping the gloves and Zach Parise becomes the second NHLer to net his 400th in consecutive days. Plus, a veteran is a rare healthy scratch and the day John Spano received unanimous approval to buy the franchise. But first, a recap of last night’s shootout loss in San Jose.
Let’s dive in.
🏒 IN SHORT: Logan Couture scored the only goal of the shootout and James Reimer made 44 saves as the San Jose Sharks (23-22-6) topped the Islanders 4-3 on Thursday night at SAP Center. Brock Nelson scored his team-leading 19th goal of the season. Zach Parise notched his fifth point in the last two games and had a goal — the 400th of his career — and an assist in the defeat for the Islanders (19-20-8). Mathew Barzal tallied his second straight two-assist game. New York tallied a season-high 47 shots and Ilya Sorokin stopped 25 of 28 shots but dropped to 0-4 in the shootout this season.
🔑 KEY MOMENT(s):
🔷 The Islanders scored first again for a second consecutive game with some strong work from the second line. Kieffer Bellows won a puck battle in the corner, rimmed it around to Scott Mayfield’s whose shot was tipped home by Nelson for his 19th of the year at the 5:04 mark of the first period.
🔻 San Jose quickly struck twice to take a 2-1 lead at 2:38 of the first frame as Josh Weatherby fluttering shot found its way through a screen past Sorokin. The Sharks’ two goals came 1:15 apart.
🔶 Zach Parise stayed red hot as he scored career goal #400 to tie the game at two at 7:12 of the second off a terrific feed from Sebastian Aho. Parise is 3-3-6 in the last four games (and 3-2-5 in the last two).
🔷 After San Jose regained the lead again late in the second, the Islanders responded right back 19 seconds later with Adam Pelech’s one-timer beating James Reimer through the five-hole.
🔻 In the shootout, Reimer stopped all three Isles attempts, including Nelson’s for the win. Logan Couture's successful try would be the game-deciding goal.
3 REACTIONS
❶ PAGING HOCKEY GODS: “There’s not too many things I can say that were negative. It might have been our best game of the year,” said Barry Trotz. “We didn’t get the two points but we deserved the two points. We were really good. The hockey gods did not bless us tonight, but we can walk out of here feeling we played a real strong game.”
❷ FRUSTRATING BUT POSITIVE: “I guess there’s a bit of frustration,” said Adam Pelech. “Honestly, I think that we need to take the positives from that. That (game) was a clear picture of how we play when we’re successful. So, it’s less frustration and something for us more to build off of.”
❸ DESERVED MORE: “I thought we played a really good game,” said Zach Parise. “Deserved a better outcome. We threw a lot of shots at the net, had a lot of zone time. Just top to bottom, we played really well. One of those games where you leave and you just feel like you played well and deserved to come out with two (points).”
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders travel to Southern California for a back-to-back with the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks. Face-off is set for 10:30 p.m. ET on Saturday at Crypto.com Arena and 8:30 p.m. ET on Sunday at Honda Center.
📊 STANDINGS:
📰 NEWS: Zdeno Chara was on the ice for the opening face-off on Thursday night, and in doing so, played in his 1,652 regular-season game, setting an NHL record for defensemen, breaking a record held by Chris Chelios for 13 years.
“I'm very grateful, said Chara after the game. I'm very lucky to have many, many great teammates, coaches, trainers, and friends. Not more important than the support from my wife and my children. I wouldn't be sitting here if it weren't for them allowing me to be sitting here and to still play the game and do what I do. And if it weren't for my teammates. I'm very lucky and grateful to be still playing the game. I've had some amazing people around me for 25 years."
Chara along with his milestone also dropped the gloves for the 76th time in his career with his fight against San Jose’s Jeffrey Viel. Chara is the oldest player in NHL history to receive a fighting major at 44 years and 343 days old.
🏒 BACK IN ACTION: Deemed 100% healthy, forward Oliver Wahlstrom was back in the lineup on Thursday, playing with a new linemate. The 11th overall pick in the 2018 NHL Draft has 10 goals in 41 games this season and was joined by captain Anders Lee on a line being centered by JG Pageau. The Wahlstrom-Pageau-Parise line had been the most consistent for the Islanders this season, but with Zach Parise having success on Tuesday playing on the top line with Mat Barzal, Trotz rolled out the new combination.
"Any young guy coming into this league, and Wahlly is getting his feet wet in the last couple of years and he’s just continued to grow in his game, all of us go through that transition when we come up into the NHL," Anders Lee said.
"He’s done a great job of putting in the work and the effort and taking a lot of accountability in trying to be as effective as he can be in all three zones. He’s done a great job of working toward developing his game and becoming the complete player that he wants to be.
📝 HEALTHY SCRATCH: The return of Wahlstrom meant Barry Trotz had a decision to make and with Kieffer Bellows making the most of his latest chance to stick in the lineup, Josh Bailey was a rare healthy scratch along with Andy Greene who sat out his fifth consecutive game in favor of Sebastian Aho.
"It’s tougher with those guys because you know what they bring," Trotz said. "They bring leadership. They bring experience. They bring care. We have a really good group, and especially guys like Andy and Bails and guys that have a lot of sweat equity in the league.”
"Those are always tough conversations because they’re really good pros. But at the same time, they recognize that there are certain things that we’ve got to do and, with all the games coming up, it might benefit them as well."
RARE OCCURRENCE: Thursday’s game was the first time Bailey was a healthy scratch since a November 8, 2015 game against the Boston Bruins. The player that took his spot in the lineup that night was … Taylor Beck. It was one of just two games Beck played for the Islanders in the 2015-16 season.
📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, Ilya Sorokin dropped to 0-4 in the shootout this season, allowing seven goals on ten shots; the Isles still have only two shootout goals this season (in 22 attempts). Logan Couture is now 31 for 70 in the shootout, including thirteen career game-deciding goals; he is one of ten active players with at least 31 shootout goals.
Zach Parise is the 104th NHL player to hit 400 goals and the 11th American to do so. He did it in his 1,107th career game, matching Jason Chimera, Butch Goring, and Derek Morris for 199th all-time.
🗓 ISLE REMEMBER: On February 24, 1997, the sale of the New York Islanders to John Spano received unanimous approval from the National Hockey League's Board of Governors. Spano had reached an agreement in November to purchase the Islanders and all of the cable television rights for $165 million.
Via UPI: Spano, who bought the club from John O. Pickett, has said he will not move the Islanders to another city. But he also has stated the need for renovations to the Nassau Coliseum or construction of a new arena for the Islanders to become a competitive team.
🔗 Oliver Wahlstrom in, Josh Bailey out for Islanders vs. San Jose by Andrew Gross, Newsday “Wahlstrom’s return meant that Trotz also had to tell a healthy Josh Bailey that he was out of the Islanders’ lineup. That was a more difficult message for the coach to deliver.”
🔗 Islanders on the Trade Block at the Deadline by Jon Zella, The Hockey Writers “As the 2022 NHL trade deadline approaches, the New York Islanders appear to be involved in a number of conversations about potential deals. Unfortunately, they’re not in the position they thought they’d be in.”
And we leave you with this …. it’s been a decade of Zeeker. Thursday was the 10 year anniversary of Casey Cizikas making his NHL debut in a game against the Rangers. To mark the occasion, WHRU Sports put out a feature with his best moments.
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