Good Morning, Islanders Country.
It’s NHL Trade Deadline day! Surely, the Islanders as clear sellers will be making a trade or two, right? Eh, maybe. You might be refreshing your Twitter feed for nothing. If anything, in recent days, momentum wasn’t building towards trades, but rather the Isles playing out the stretch and finishing strong with this group knowing they want some of their UFAs back in the fold next season. Then again, maybe that’s just what Lou Lamoriello wants you to think - or not. We’ll find out how much or how little the roster changed by 3 pm (or soon after).
As for the game, the Islanders were playing for the fifth time in seven days and it showed. Barry Trotz had plenty left in the tank to unload on the refs, but the team “didn’t have the juice” after a 4-2 win over the Dallas Stars on Saturday. They played ok 5-on-5 but had no stand-out efforts - except Ilya Sorokin in net of course. This time, that wasn’t enough to earn a point against one of the two teams behind them in the Metro.
Coming up, two suspicious scratches a day before the deadline, and is the Isles’ top-line one without Mathew Barzal? Plus, the Trotz-era Isles have been the hardest to score against, “Hammer” gives the 00-01 team a rare win and the NYI Booster Club takes a bus ride. But first, let’s recap yesterday’s loss.
Let’s dive in.
🏒 IN SHORT: Kevin Hayes scored twice and Carter Hart made 26 saves as the Philadelphia Flyers (20-31-11) defeated the New York Islanders 2-1 at the Wells Fargo Center on Sunday afternoon. Playing in their first game since trading longtime captain Claude Giroux, Joel Farabee and Travis Konecny each assisted both goals for the Flyers. Owen Tippett made his Philadelphia debut after being acquired from the Florida Panthers. Casey Cizikas opened the scoring at 12:50 of the first period with a slap shot from the point and Ilya Sorokin made 35 saves for the Islanders (26-25-9), who had their six-game point streak end (5-0-1).
🔑 KEY MOMENT(s):
🔷 Casey Cizikas gave the Isles a 1-0 lead on their third shot of the game at 12:50 of the first. “Zeeker” intercepted a clearing attempt from Patrick Brown before his slap-shot from the point deflected off Brown’s stick and in. "I was just focusing on getting it past that first guy," Cizikas said. "It's not a comfortable spot being there for a forward. You don't want to get that blocked. I just focused on getting it through that first guy. If you do that, anything can happen."
🔻 Kevin Hayes tied it 1-1 at 4:22 of the second period after Joel Farabee tipped the puck away from Sebastian Aho below the goal line. The puck went to Travis Konecny, who sent a pass to Hayes for a shot glove side from the right face-off circle. Barry Trotz called the turnover "catastrophic."
🔻 After Kieffer Bellows took a penalty, Farabee finds a loose puck between two Islanders defenders, lunges and pokes it over to Hayes who was able to one-time a shot into the open net for a power-play goal and a 2-1 lead.
🔶 Ilya Sorokin picked up where he left off from Thursday against the New York Rangers, making another ridiculous save, this time, stretching out his left pad to make a toe save to keep the Islanders within striking distance midway through the third period.
3 REACTIONS
❶ NO JUICE: "They didn't have a lot of juice tonight, plain and simple," Barry Trotz said. "Mentally they just didn't have the juice. We played okay, but we didn't execute when we needed to. We were fine, we didn't give up a lot of five-on-five chances tonight. We had a turnover on the first goal, and they had a power-play goal. We didn't generate enough, and we passed up some looks. We were just not really sharp, and I'll attribute it to everyone pushing hard this week, it's a lot of games. Just didn't have enough juice."
❷ UGLY GAME: "It was kind of an ugly game a little bit," Anders Lee said. "A little bouncy, a little choppy. There wasn't a ton of flow. We were just trying to get our legs and trying to get it and got it at times, just wasn't one of those games when it was coming easy. There wasn't a lot of pucks out there to make opportunities, and you say that right by saying it got clogged up."
❸ SOROKIN STRONG, AGAIN: “Another strong performance like you’ve seen from him over the last month or so,” Anders Lee said. “I mean, he’s seeing the puck, he’s making the plays and you know, he gave us a chance tonight. We couldn’t seem to find the looks we needed.”
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders return to UBS Arena on Tuesday night to host the Ottawa Senators. Face-off is set for 7:30 p.m
📊 STANDINGS:
📰 NEWS: The Islanders announced Cal Clutterbuck and Andy Greene would not dress Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia against the Flyers. Both were said to be day-to-day (maintenance). Kieffer Bellows took Clutterbuck’s spot in the lineup. Understandably, the speculation was that ‘maintenance’ is Lou Lamoriello monitoring the trade market for the two unrestricted free agents and not wanting to risk injury to either player.
It’s hard to know whether something is realistically in the works or if it was just common sense to keep them out of a game that doesn’t mean much with the Islanders so far out of playoff position. "They're not [traded]. They're both on maintenance. That's all it really is,” said Trotz after the game. Fully aware of the peculiar timing, Troytz added, "they both laughed about it."
🏒 TOP LINE SWAP: Since 2018-19, the Islanders’ top line has been whichever one Mathew Barzal was centering. But as Ethan Sears wrote in the NY Post, Barzal missing time with a lower-body injury led to a ‘happy accident’ which put Anders Lee and Anthony Beauvillier on a line centered by Brock Nelson.
Earlier this season, Islanders coach Barry Trotz admitted he’d be remiss to split up Anders Lee and Mathew Barzal on the team’s top forward line. But when Barzal missed a handful of games with an injury earlier this month, it forced the Islanders to play Brock Nelson in that role. Sometimes, the best ideas come by accident. Since Barzal’s return, the top line has stayed that way, with Nelson centering Lee and Beauvillier. It is easy to see why.
The attention has mostly been on the play of Nelson and Lee with good reason. On Saturday, Nelson recorded his 20th career multi-goal game, and 4th hat trick to give him a career-high 27 goals in 50 games this season. Meanwhile, Lee had his six-game goal streak end but extended his point-scoring streak to seven games (9-2-11). However, not to be overlooked is the play of Beauvillier, whose speed and ability on the forecheck have created opportunities.
“I think Beau’s playing extremely well,” Nelson said. “Lots of speed, obviously, quickness, can make plays. You can try to get open, [he] can get you some pucks, some good looks. And Leesy, he’s been one of the hottest players in the league. You get him some pucks right now, he’s feeling good.”
📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, By allowing only two goals on Sunday, the Isles lowered their goals against during the Trotz era to 2.50, best in the NHL in that stretch (Boston 2.51). The loss ended Ilya Sorokin's four-game win streak; he has allowed just 7 goals in the last five games (4-1-0, 1.41, .958).
🗓 ISLE REMEMBER: One of the few bright spots for the 2000-01 Islanders that finished with an NHL worse 52 points came on March 20, 2001, in St. Louis. Defenseman Roman Hamrlik scored 23 seconds into overtime as the Islanders ruined Al MacInnis' return with a 4-3 victory over the 103 point-bound Blues.
Todd Reirden made an errant pass behind his own net that was intercepted by Mariusz Czerkawski, who found Hamrlik in the slot, where he wristed a shot past Roman Turek and just inside the right goalpost for his 14th goal of the season.
🎧 Islanders forecheck 14: Martin Biron Guest Stars on A Very Special Pre-NHL Trade Deadline Show: The show opens with former NHL goaltender and current Sabres analyst Martin Biron providing his viewpoints on goalies available at the deadline, including Semyon Varlamov. Later on, the hosts debate the merits of moving certain Islanders before 3 p.m. Monday, and Lou asks Chris about his experiences as the Islanders’ PR guy at the trade deadline.
🔗 Maintenance or precursor to trade? Islanders scratch Cal Clutterbuck and Andy Greene ahead of deadline, by Kevin Kurz, The Athletic: “Nothing to see here. Smoke, but no fire. That was the message relayed by coach Barry Trotz and captain Anders Lee after the Islanders’ 2-1 loss to the Flyers on Sunday, in which pending free agents Cal Clutterbuck and Andy Greene were both scratches for what the team termed “maintenance.”
🔗 Islanders Best Trade Deadline Deals, by Jon Zella, The Hockey Writers: “With the 2022 trade deadline set for Monday, March 21, we’re taking a look back at the best trade deadline deals in New York Islanders’ history.”
And we leave you with this ….the Islanders Booster Club, led by Gary and Claire Harding, took a bus ride to Philly to watch the Isles play the Flyers on Sunday afternoon and posed for this photo-op. Although the Isles lost, the young gentleman in the Islanders’ suit and orange bow-tie won the day.
Go to NYIBooster.org to learn how you can become a member.
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