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Good Morning, Islanders Country.
In the latest episode of “The Red Line” with co-hosts Phil Farber (@PhilzFacts) and David Tuchman (@TuckOnSports), the boys search hard for silver linings and discuss the coaching change that isn’t happening after an unacceptable 5-4 OT loss to the San Jose Sharks.
In this episode:
Silver linings
Scoring isn’t the problem
Special teams have been outstanding
Gauthier needs more ice time
Holmstrom gets his assists
Are players overworked early in games?
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Let’s dive in.
📰 NEWS: According to head coach Lane Lambert, defenseman Sebastian Aho (IR, upper-body) joined the team for practice on Wednesday but was ruled out of the lineup for Thursday's contest against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Aho missed his fifth straight game on Tuesday night against the Sharks.
◾️ Lambert took the ice for practice on Wednesday, much to the chagrin of many in Isles Nation, who were calling for his job (again) after the team’s latest third-period disastrous collapse.
Courtesy Stefen Rosner in The Hockey News, we got this quote from the embattled head coach, who is doing his best to shut out the negatives and put a positive spin on things, like the team collecting points in nine of 10 games.
The fanbase wasn’t ready to hear this type of quote yesterday. If the coach was still employed, they wanted him to sound as distraught, upset, and angry as they were. Would that have changed things? Probably not, but hearing stuff like this makes fans feel as if the coach is minimizing the team’s significant problems even if, deep down, he isn’t.
HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY
Brock Nelson called the loss “unacceptable,” and captain Anders Lee sounded desperate to figure things out after the team messed up the final eight minutes of the game and gave away a point on Tuesday night.
Yet, over the last several weeks, the players and the head coach seemed hesitant to admit that all the third-period collapses were starting to way on them mentally, contributing to their failure to close out games.
Finally, after practice on Wednesday, Bo Horvat sounded like a former captain and told us what we had all been thinking. “It's always in the back of your mind, maybe a little bit,” said Horvat. “It's sad to say, and it's happened so many times this year where it's hard not to think about when you're going out there again, that it's gonna happen again.”
The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders host Johnny Gaudreau and the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight at UBS Arena. Face-off is scheduled for 7:30 PM EST.
📊 STANDINGS:
HOLIDAY SALE
🏷 Per Forbes, co-owner Scott Malkin is nearing a 10% sale of his stake in the New York Islanders at a valuation of a whopping $1.75 Billion.
The new minority owner remains identified, but team representatives were reported briefed on the deal this week. Malkin and co-owner and alternate governor Jon Ledecky purchased 85% of the Islanders in 2016 at a $485 million valuation from the late Charles B. Wang.
Ledecky and Malkin became minority owners in 2014 before taking majority control in 2016. They purchased the remaining 15% from Wang’s estate in 2021.
The sale by Malkin would be the second recent partial sale of the team. In June, former NHL and NFL executive John Collins bought a small piece of the Islanders and became the team’s operating partner, overseeing all business operations and an alternate governor.
📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, the Isles power play scored for the 4th straight game (5-13, 38.5%) and has now scored 11 times in 29 opportunities (an NHL-leading 37.9%) since November 15th. The Isles PK is now 7-7 over the last three games and 17-19 (89.5%) over the last eight games.
🎥 ISLES REWIND: On December 7, 1996, the Islanders retired Clark Gillies’ No. 9 in a pre-game ceremony before the game against the Washington Capitals. At 4:22 of the third period, Bryan Smolinski broke a scoreless tie when his centering pass deflected past goaltender Jim Carey for a 1-0 lead. Niklas Andersson scored an empty netter to seal the win and the 24-save shutout for Tommy Salo. You can watch the entire pre-game ceremony and the whole game HERE, courtesy of IslandersPride on YouTube.
🎧 Double Chili Podcast with Peter Schwartz “Former Islanders Captain Denis Potvin Joins Peter Schwartz for the debut episode of "The Double Chili Islanders Podcast". The hall-of-fame defenseman scored the Islanders' 10th goal on November 13th, 1979 against the Rangers, ensuring that all fans at the game would receive a double order of chili”
🔗 Islanders failure to close out games has been season-long problem by Ethan Sears “So it is all the more confounding that those issues came back in vogue against San Jose, when the last-place Sharks stormed back from a 4-1 deficit to beat the Islanders 5-4 in overtime and send them into another tailspin of self-questioning and doubt”
🔗 What Would a Roster Retool Look Like for the NY Islanders? by Joe Lazar, Eyes on Isles “With an aging core and a frustrating inability to close out games, the Islanders could ultimately choose a slight rebuild by the trade deadline. This is what that could realistically look like.”
And we leave you with this …. the original captain, Ed Westfall, joined the Talkin’ Isles podcast. The first Isles captain talks about the 1972 Expansion Draft (1:57), how he became the Islanders first captain (4:20), representing the Isles as their first All-Star (24:52), the 1975 playoff run, and the Kate Smith story (26:36), playing his whole career without a helmet (36:19) and his reaction to having a rank named after him on LI (52:07).
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The Red Line: Are we having fun yet?