Good Morning, Islanders Country!
They say it’s better to be lucky than good. On this St. Patrick’s Day, Ilya Sorokin was GREAT, like really great, like better than Igor Shesterkin great.
Look at this picture, just look at it. Incredible. As the team’s social media said “HANG IT IN THE LOUVRE!” It was the most fun win of the season (Barry Trotz agrees). The atmosphere was festive, the pace was fast and the competition was fierce. Their two goals were scored by Fightin’ Irish alums (how perfect is that?) and it was against the Rangers - those wins are always fun. It made for an enjoyable LIRR ride back to Long Island for the fans at MSG.
Coming up, Zach Parise would love to be back and Anders Lee does something that hasn’t been done in over a decade. Plus, Pat Lafontaine’s big game on St. Paddy’s 32 years ago to end a loooooong winless streak, and ‘Barzy’ gets a new look. But first, let’s recap a very entertaining win.
Let’s dive in.
🏒 IN SHORT: Ilya Sorokin made 29 saves and Kyle Palmieri scored the tiebreaking goal with less than three minutes left in the third period to lift the Islanders over the rival New York Rangers 2-1 Thursday night at Madison Square Garden. Anders Lee scored for the sixth consecutive game, opening the scoring for the Islanders (25-24-9) with a power-play goal in the second. Chris Kreider scored his 40th goal of the season, and Igor Shesterkin made 26 saves for the Rangers (38-18-5), who had won their previous two games. The Islanders are 4-0-1 in their last five games and now 3-1 versus the Rangers on St. Patrick’s Day.
🔑 KEY MOMENT(s):
🔷 Quite simply, the save of the year. Not for the Islanders, for the NHL. Ilya Sorokin is known for his flexibility and acrobatic saves, but we’ve never seen anything like this! “Thr-Ilya” diving backward to block Artemi Panarin’s shot in mid-air with the lower shaft of his stick as he falls back to the ice. Wow. Barry Trotz shared his reaction in the post-game.
🔶 When the second period started, the Islanders had a power-play and a fresh sheet of ice, but about only 50 seconds to work with and they used nearly all of it for the game’s first goal. Noah Dobson’s hard pass to the goal line was one-touched by Mathew Barzal to Anders Lee who found space in the top right corner of the net.
🔻 Later in the second, the Rangers had a power-play chance when Scott Mayfield was called for interference and Chris Kreider scored yet another power-play goal (his 25th) and his 40th of the season, rifling a shot short-side past Sorokin with 6:22 left in the period to tie the game 1-1.
🔷 The tie was broken with under three minutes to go in regulation. Kyle Palmieri scored his 11th of the season with just 2:44 to play deflecting Ryan Pulock’s shot out of mid-air to beat Igor Shersterkin and give the Isles a 2-1 lead. Palmieri has 10 goals, 4 assists in his last 16 games. It’s been a remarkable turnaround in his first full Islanders’ season.
3 REACTIONS
❶ HOLY…F: Barry Trotz had the words, but couldn’t quite use them when describing one of the best, if not the best save he’s seen in a long time.
❷ KEEP BUILDING: The way things have gone, the ups and downs, the inability to get this going, it was something we've been going for all year. Now, we're getting there, said Anders Lee. We've just got to keep going at it, keep building, stick together and roll. That's what we're doing now. This is a product of - regardless of how you view all of that before it - it's a product of trying to get our team to where we are."
❸ ARE YOU KIDDING ME? "I was on the bench and didn't have a great view of it, but I saw the replay, are you kidding me?" Barzal said of the save. "Just insane flexibility, insane reaction time, hats off. There are probably two or three goalies that can make that save and he's one of them, so it was a big boost on the bench."
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders return home on Saturday to host the Dallas Stars at UBS Arena. Face-off is scheduled for 2 p.m.
📊 STANDINGS:
📰 NEWS: Last night was the second-time Ilya Sorokin and Igor Shersterkin have matched up against one another since coming over from Russia. During the game, you could hear rival chants of “Ig-or” and “Il-ya” from the fans. It’s going to be a rivalry within a rivalry for years to come.
Barry Trotz gets it: "Ilya and Shesterkin are both really good friends and they’re both helluva goaltenders," Islanders coach Trotz said. "They’re as good as there is in the NHL. You look at the Crosby-Ovechkin thing, maybe it’s an Ilya-Igor thing."
Gerard Gallant not so much: "It never crossed my mind," Gallant said of the rivalry. "It’s an Islander-Ranger rivalry, more than anything. There’s lots of Russian goalies in our league now. But they’re two great goalies, there’s no doubt about that. They’re both having great years and both talented guys."
🔙 ZACH WANTS BACK: Veteran forward Zach Parise wants back with the Islanders and the Islanders presumably want him back too. Parise’s consistent performance, work ethic, and strong skating at age 37 make that an understandable position for the team and the player as Parise has returned to a full-time role after being out of the lineup with the Wild last season.
“Let’s be honest here: I was out of the lineup 12 months ago,” Parise said. “To have the opportunity that [the Islanders have] given me, I’ve tried as best I can to take advantage of it and I’ve loved every minute of it. And they’ve put me in good spots, I don’t care where my name is on the board.”
With the Islanders not in playoff contention, you would think a reunion between Parise and the Islanders should be unlikely. Parise signed with the Islanders for the league minimum for an opportunity to play but also because they were a Stanley Cup favorite. You would think at 37, Parise would want to be traded to a contender at the deadline, but rather he seems completely content and downright happy to be on Long Island with this organization and group of players.
“It’s a great group of people, it really is,” Parise said. “We’re all out there trying our best and playing as hard as we can, playing for each other. We haven’t gotten the results that we wanted, but we don’t come into the rink the next day pouting and quiet. There’s a great camaraderie about this group. And yeah, we’re not in a playoff spot right now, and we’d love to be, but there’s more to life than that. I don’t think it’s gonna put everyone in a bad mood every day.”
We’ll wait and see if Parise is part of the team’s future plans or if a mid-round pick is enough to entice Lou Lamoriello to trade the well-respected player regardless of how comfortable he is in his current situation.
📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, Anders Lee is the first Islander to score in six straight games since Michael Grabner did so in 2011. He joins Grabner as the only Islanders with a 6-game goal streak in the 2000s. Ziggy Palffy was the last Islander to score in seven straight games (1996).
🗓 ISLE REMEMBER: On March 17, 1990, the Islanders behind Pat LaFontaine's 49th goal and a hat trick by Brent Sutter, ended a 14-game winless streak with a 6-3 victory over the New York Rangers at the Nassau Coliseum. With the score 1-1, LaFontaine shot a five-foot backhander through his own legs when Derek King passed out from the sideboards 48 seconds into the second period.
LaFontaine added two assists and set up the tiebreaking goal by Patrick Flatley in the second period. Sutter scored the game's last two goals to raise his season total to 28. The Islanders, 0-11-3 in their previous 14 games, were in danger of tying the 15-game winless streak (0-13-2) set by the 1972-73 expansion Islanders.
🎧 Zach Parise would ‘love’ to be back with ‘fun’ tight-knit Islanders by Ethan Sears, New York Post “Parise’s sensibility fits in perfectly with this group of Islanders, which became so close over recent playoff runs.”
🔗 Islanders' Ilya Sorokin wins Round 2 of budding rivalry with Rangers' Igor Shesterkin by Andrew Gross, Newsday “The Islanders’ Ilya Sorokin and the Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin were both projected to become their respective teams’ No. 1 goalies and that has come to fruition this season.”
And we leave you with this ….Next to his breath-taking skating, the thing some Islanders fans love most about Mathew Barzal is his breath-taking hair. That’s why this photo of Barzal entering MSG has fans gasping. It’ll take a while before we see Barzal’s ‘flow’ again, if ever.
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