Good Morning, Islanders Country.
“This one sucks.” - Anders Lee
There’s been plenty of losing this season, 11 straight, blowout losses, shutout losses, and non-competitive losses. None felt like last night. Last night was a gut punch. It’s a “this isn’t our year” loss in a season with a lot of “this isn’t our year” stuff happening.
Stuff like allowing the latest regulation losing goal ever at home in franchise history which is what happened in the 4-3 loss to the Nashville Predators. The Isles are now winless in seven tries at UBS Arena at Belmont Park. That’s unfathomable. No new NHL venue has ever waited this long for its first win by the home team.
Coming up, Brock and Casey inch closer to action, Chara wins his rematch, the Burke wreath is back with a vengeance, and “The Maven” is a US Hockey Hall of Famer. But first, let’s recap a dagger of a loss last night in Elmont.
Let’s dive in.
🏒 IN SHORT: The Islanders (6-11-5) lost for the 12th time in 13 games and remained winless in seven tries at UBS Arena, falling 4-3 to the Nashville Predators (15-10-1) on Thursday night. Eeli Tolvanen deflected Roman Josi’s shot with 11.5 seconds remaining, stunning the home crowd and sending the Predators to their third straight win. Austin Czarnik tallied his first goal as an Islander to open the scoring and Oliver Wahlstrom had a two-assist night. Anders Lee scored his third goal in two games, netting a power-play goal to tie the game early in the second. Noah Dobson gave New York a 3-2 lead with a low wrist shot from beyond the right circle at 5:08 of the third [Box Score].
🔑 KEY MOMENT(s):
🔷 The 26-10-20 line produced for the second straight game. Wahlstrom chased down the puck and made a smooth back-handed pass to a darting Czarnik for his first goal as an Islander to give New York a 1-0 lead.
🔶 Playing in his 100th career game, Dobson’s low wrist shot beyond the right circle gave the Islanders a 3-2 lead 5:08 into the third period. It was Dobson’s second huge goal in as many games on home-ice.
🔻 Trailing 3-2, Yakov Trenin tied the game for Nashville at 12:31 of the third when he drove to the net and snuck behind the defense, allowing put in the rebound of a Tanner Jeannot shot past Semyon Varlamov.
🔻 With time winding down to secure a point, Roman Josi’s shot from the left point was re-directed by Tolvanen with 11.5 seconds remaining to give the Predators a 4-3 lead. The key to this play was Dobson playing the puck around the boards without any help on that side which gave Nashville an opportunity to get the puck on net.
3 REACTIONS
❶ NEED TO ATTACK: I think over the last few years we’ve learned playing with a one or two-goal lead in the third period, you can defend as hard as you want, but it’s tough if you’re spending the whole period in your own zone defending,” noted Adam Pelech. “I think we need to get back in the mindset of attacking and try to spend time in their zone. I think that’s the best way to handle those one, two-goal leads in the third.”
❷ ON THE WRONG SIDE: "We've had games in this building we could have won, and for whatever reason we haven't closed it out," Anders Lee said. "There are a lot of individual games you look at and how close they were and we came out on the wrong side and it just happens to be that we strung them together in this building.".
❸ THAT ONE HURT: "I thought we played pretty well, they didn't have a lot of chances and we didn't have a lot of chances," Islanders Head Coach Barry Trotz said. "We deserved at least a point, maybe two tonight, but that's not the way it's going for us right now. That one hurt because I thought we played a pretty solid game against a pretty good team."
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders continue their quest to win a home game when they host the New Jersey Devils on Saturday night. The puck drops at 7:30 pm EST.
📊 STANDINGS:
📰 NEWS: Casey Cizikas and Brock Nelson (lower-body) both skated on Thursday. Barry Trotz said that both players were ‘days away’ and would have to go through practice with grind and contact before returning to the lineup. “We’ll see where the doctors, the therapists, the strength coaches, the sports science department thinks both those guys are at and hopefully we get them sooner rather than later.”
💯 CENTURY MARK: Coming up on his 22nd birthday, Noah Dobson played his 100th game on Thursday. With Ryan Pulock out, Dobson’s responsibilities and ice-time have grown and for the most part, the former 12th overall pick has been up to the task. “I think everybody sees the growth and some of it has been well calculated by the organization,” Trotz said. “This year with not as much depth on the back end, Noah has been put into a more prominent position out of necessity and he's dealt with it pretty well.”
⬇️ BEAU BENCHED: The struggling Anthony Beauvilier did not see the ice for the first 10 minutes of the second period. In the post-game, Trotz explained his decision.
🥊 BLOODY BATTLE: Zdeno Chara and Yakov Trenin met in a rematch of their January 2020 bout when Trenin stunned Chara with a right hand. In the first period, Chara got even, getting the sweater over Trenin’s head and landing several shots that left his face bloodied.
☕️ COFFEE TALK: The national TNT broadcast had some fun at Brendan Burke’s expense on Wednesday night. Coming back from a commercial, TNT aired the now-infamous video of Brendan spilling his wife’s coffee after being ‘attacked’ by a wreath.
The incident even inspired a Twitter account. @BurkeWreath has amassed 58 followers in just a few days. We’ll see how long it hangs around #IslesTwitter.
📚 SOUND SMART: Via Eric Hornick’s The Skinny, the Isles are 0-5-2 at UBS Arena, extending their own NHL record for most games without a win in a new venue, and are 1-9-3 in their last 13 games overall. This season is the first time in club history that the Isles have opened a season winless in seven home games, and only the tenth time in club history that the Isles have gone winless in at least seven home games at any point in a season. The seven-game winless streak is the longest for any NHL team at the start of a home season since the Sabres went winless in nine games to open the 2013-14 campaign.
🔗 RATY MAKING CASE AS 2021 DRAFT STEAL by James Nichols, The Fourth Period “The New York Islanders don’t have a whole lot of highly touted prospects, but Aatu Räty is shaping up to be their best. The Isles’ top prospect was traded in the Finnish Elite League (Liiga), Finland’s top professional hockey league, from Oulun Kärpät to Mikkelin Jukurit and it has Islander fans beaming. The excitement isn’t unwarranted either as Räty has taken off with his new club after escaping an inconsistent environment he seemingly didn’t fit in with Kärpät.”
🔗 Brock Nelson, Casey Cizikas ‘days away’ from Isles return, Barry Trotz says by Ethan Sears, NY Post “How important is Brock Nelson’s return to the Islanders? Nelson last played on Nov. 21, recording 6:58 of ice time before leaving with a lower-body injury against the Maple Leafs. Heading into Thursday’s game against the Predators, Nelson still led the team in goals, with nine to Oliver Wahlstrom’s eight.”
🎧 Islanders Anxiety - Episode 182 - Coming Back to Life with Dan Saraceni and Michael Leeboff, Lighthouse Hockey “Mike and Dan breathe a sigh of relief as the Islanders win an actual game and start putting points together. They just need to keep doing that.They talk about a big win in Ottawa in which they finally looked like themselves again and the three extra-inning losses that preceded it that had some good signs as well. They discuss the elevated recent play of Noah Dobson and the possible return of that elusive teammate - Lady Luck.”
And we leave you with this …. congrats to The Hockey Maven, Stan Fischler for being inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame class on Thursday. Fischler was a part of Islanders TV broadcasts from 1975 until 2018 and had covered the Islanders as a writer from the team's first game in 1972. He's penned the Maven's Memories column on NewYorkIslanders.com since the start of the 2018-19 season.
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