Good Morning, Islanders Country.
That wasn’t pretty.
Well, actually, the first period was beautiful. A 2-0 lead, a power-play goal, a great response in a game where one more loss officially means you’ve gone from a slump to a skid. It was exactly what you wanted to see.
But then came the second period, and it was ugly (with a really scary on-the-ice moment). The Islanders were undisciplined again, taking penalty after penalty, allowing the Senators to stall their momentum and tie the game.
In the third period, their playmakers made a play; Bo Horvat came down the ice in transition and made a pass to Mathew Barzal, who fed a trailing Noah Dobson for a 90+mph slapshot - his hardest shot of the season that found twine.
That’s the positives; the negatives are the Islanders gave up 45 shots, way too many, after giving up 121 over the previous three. They’ve now allowed 168 shots in their last four games after allowing only 42 in their first two games; it is the most shots the Isles have allowed in a four-game stretch since February 201
It’s asking too much of Ilya Sorokin, and Lane Lambert knows it. “Our goaltender was our best penalty killer,” Lambert said as the team killed seven of eight Ottawa PP opportunities.
“The penalty kill was good, and I thought they did a great job all night long, really. That was basically the reason we won the game.”
You can’t expect to win many like how they played last night.
Coming up, an update on Erik Brannstrom after a scary moment, and Noah Dobson has never played so much. Plus, Simon Holmstrom has a career first, one old friend hits a milestone, another says hello, and Denis Potvin lights the lamp for the first time in his prolific NHL career.
Let’s dive in.
🏒 IN SHORT: Bo Horvat and Noah Dobson each had a goal and an assist as the New York Islanders held off the Ottawa Senators 3-2 at UBS Arena on Thursday night. Cal Clutterbuck also for the Isles, and Ilya Sorokin made 46 saves, including one in the final seconds, as the Isles (3-2-1) ended a three-game losing streak. Claude Giroux and Jacob Chychrun scored for Ottawa, which lost its third straight. Joonas Korpisalo finished with 35 saves.
KEY MOMENT(s):
🔷 Leading 1-0, Casey Cizikas laid a hit, won the puck, looked up, and backhanded a pass to Cal Clutterbuck, who got off a quick release to make it 2-0.
🔻 At 12:25 of the second period, Jakob Chychrun tied the game when he moved across the blue line and was able to beat a screened Sorokin to make it 2-2.
🔶 Bo Horvat transitioned the puck down the ice and fed it to Mathew Barzal, who set up Noah Dobson in his wheelhouse for his hardest shot of the season that gave the Islanders a 3-2 lead 6:45 into the third period.
3 REACTIONS
❶ KILLER INSTINCT: “Even though we got that first one, we have to keep that killer instinct to go ahead and try and find another, said Dobson. “But to get a power play goal is huge and we have to continue to build off of it and keep working on it.”
❷ A BRICK WALL: “We definitely want to be better in front of him," Horvat said. "That [means] staying out of the box and playing five on five. And when you take those penalties, it's going to be tough on your goaltender, but he was a brick wall again tonight."
❸ FULL MARKS: “I thought those guys were full marks tonight for what they do,” Lambert said of the Identity Line. “They killed penalties, Casey and Cal killed a ton of penalties and played a lot of minutes shorthanded. Those guys gave us what they always give us in their very, very disciplined structure.”
GAME IMPACT SCORE
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders are on the road on Saturday night as they travel to Columbus to take on the Blue Jackets. Face-off is set for 7:00 PM EDT.
📊 STANDINGS:
📰 NEWS: A scary moment in the second period that left UBS Arena silent for minutes when Senators defenseman Erik Brannstrom was stretchered off the ice after a check along the boards from Cal Clutterbuck at 8:43 of the middle period. The team announced that Brannstrom was alert, had use of his extremities, and was taken to a hospital for further evaluation.
“I still have a pit in my stomach,” Clutterbuck said after the game.
◾️ Winger Simon Holmstrom was called for a tripping penalty at 4:10 of the first period for the first penalty of his career. The Swede had gone 54 penalty-free games, which was a club record from the start of an Isles career.
◾️ The Islanders defensemen continue to log heavy minutes in the absence of Scott Mayfield. Noah Dobson played a career-high 27:42; that’s the most ice time for an Islander in a game that ended in regulation since Nick Leddy played 28:05 on October 27, 2016, vs. Pittsburgh. In fact, Dobson, Adam Pelech, and Ryan Pulock all played over 26 minutes – the first time three Isles had done that since February 21, 2013 (Travis Hamonic, Mark Streit, Lubomir Visnovsky) in Montreal.
◾️ Per TSN, with his “former” team, the Ottawa Senators, in town, Long Island resident Josh Bailey was at UBS Arena with his kids to say hi to the boys on both sides. Also, former Islanders defenseman Travis Hamonic skated in his 800th career game versus the organization that got him his start. Hamonic played 444 games on Long Island until he was traded to Calgary before the 2017-18 season.
📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, Noah Dobson now has a career-best five-game point streak. Dobson had two points for the second straight game to take over the team lead in scoring (2-5-7); he has had seven of the nine points for the Isles defense this season. Dobson's assist was the 96th of his career, passing Dave Langevin and Thomas Hickey for 18th among Isles defensemen; only Denis Potvin (219) and Tomas Jonsson (also 96) had as many before their 24th birthday. Dobson's goal was his 32nd, breaking a tie with Bryan Berard for 12th place among defenders.
🎥 ISLES REWIND: On October 27, 1973, future Hall-of-Famer Denis Potvin scores his first NHL goal as the Islanders defeat the Rangers for the first time, 3-2. The win was huge for the Islanders, who were a second-year expansion team that had lost all six meetings to their crosstown opponent in the season prior.
🎧 The Red Line - Don’t Panic! In the latest episode of “The Red Line” with co-hosts Phil Farber (@PhilzFacts) and David Tuchman (@TuckOnSports), talk about Simon Holmstrom showing off his shot, Ilya Sorokin’s great saves but not great results, concerns over Oliver Wahlstrom’s skating, the team’s penalty kill, and the impact Scott Mayfield’s injury has had on the rest of the defensive group.
🔗 Islanders gut out ugly win over Senators to snap three-game skid by Ethan Sears, NY Post “The Islanders came into Thursday needing to generate more puck pressure and forechecking, crash the net more often and take some of the pressure off Ilya Sorokin’s shoulders. Mostly, though, they just needed two points to break a three-game losing streak.”
📺 Locked On Islanders: The New York Islanders Overcame the Ottawa Senators and Their Own Mistakes to Get a Big Win
And we leave you with this ….auction is open through Nov. 5th to bid on autographed Hockey Fights Cancer jerseys, with proceeds benefiting the Isles Children’s Foundation. You can bid on the items HERE
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