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Canadiens Skate Past Islanders 2-1

.c The Associated Press 

MONTREAL (AP) - Rookie Michael Ryder scored the winning goal midway into the third period, lifting the Montreal Canadiens to a 2-1 victory over the New York Islanders on Thursday night.

Ryder, selected to play in Saturday's YoungStars game during the All-Star weekend in St. Paul, Minn., scored his 15th goal with a shot from the right side that went in off goalie Garth Snow's glove.

Ryder leads all NHL rookies with 39 points, three more than the Islanders' Trent Hunter, who will be his teammate Saturday.

Mike Ribeiro scored for the third straight game and Jose Theodore made 27 saves for Montreal, which won its third straight.

Justin Papineau scored a power-play goal for New York, which lost in regulation for the first time in seven games (4-0-1-1). Snow stopped 36 of 38 shots.

The Canadiens, seventh overall in the Eastern Conference with 64 points, opened a five-point lead over the eighth-place Islanders.

Sheldon Souray, who leads all NHL defenseman in goals with 15 and will make his first All-Star appearance Sunday, drew his 20th assist on Ribeiro's power-play goal in the first period. He'd never had more than 11 points in a previous season.

The teams each converted their first man-advantage opportunity of the game.

Ribeiro opened the scoring with his 15th of the season. With Islanders center Dave Scatchard off for hooking, Ribeiro banked a shot from behind the goal line into the net off the back of Snow's pants.

New York drew even when Papineau converted an opportunity 45 seconds into a double minor to Montreal's Richard Zednik for high-sticking Oleg Kvasha.

The Islanders kept it tied with a scoreless second period despite drawing three straight minors, which kept them shorthanded over for 5:41 of the final 6:27 of the period.

Notes:@ The Islanders failed to register a point for just the second time in 11 games (6-2-2-1). ... Canadiens D Craig Rivet missed the game because of a right foot injury. Rivet, who had X-rays earlier in the day, was struck on the foot in practice Monday by a shot by teammate Pierre Dagenais. 

Fights: None.

islesinfo comment: Early on in the second period, Islanders color commentator Joe Micheletti commented that the officials had done a very good job up to that point of the game. The score then was 1-1. At about the midway point of the second period, that all changed in my opinion bigtime. First Michael Peca took a run at Montreal blueliner Francis Bouillon. It was a clean hit. At the stoppage in play Bouillon takes a run back at Peca unexpectedly and gets his stick up into Peca's face. NO CALL. On the next play Butenschon is called for crosschecking. After the Isles kill off the penalty a Montreal d-man grabbed the back of Jason Blake's jersey and pulled him down. After the whistle Blake gets called off for what was called a slash. He probably was lucky it wasn't spearing. But still, the officials chose to only call the second infraction. After the Isles killed off Blake's penalty, they get called a third time in a row for a weak interference call on Janne Niinimaa. Fast Forward to the third period late, Trent Hunter is crosschecked hard into the boards, and then crosschecked again hard down to the ice. NO CALL. I don't want to make a conspiracy here because I'm sure 95% of NHL officials are from Canada. But take a look at where the officials of this game come from:

Referee Marc Joanette and Linesman Michel Cormier are BOTH from Quebec, which is the Province Montreal is located.
Referee Dean Warren is from Toronto
Linesman Steve Barton is from Ottawa    

Officiating aside, the Islanders have been on a good run. Even though they failed to catch the Habs and move closer in the standings, they can hold their heads up high going into the all-star break. It's just a shame Ryder was the one to get the game winner. He and Trent Hunter are similar players. Both power forwards. But just like Hunter won the head to head battle with Bergeron in the game against the Bruins January 27th with two goals, Raycroft shined for the Bruins in goal January 29th allowing only 1 goal for the win. Last night Ryder got the one up with the game winner on his team's home ice. There's still a big chunk of season left and my money is on Hunter being the top guy in goals and points by seasons end.

Isles Scratches: RW Eric Godard
Injuries: RW Mark Parrish, C Alexei Yashin, D Eric Cairns

Lineups:

ISLANDERS
FORWARDS
(21) Mariusz Czerkawski-(27) Mike Peca-(45) Arron Asham
(77) Cliff Ronning-(12) Oleg Kvasha-(55) Jason Blake
(17) Shawn Bates-(38) Dave Scatchard-(7) Trent Hunter
(26) Justin Papineau-(20) Eric Manlow-(11) Mattias Weinhandl

DEFENSEMEN
(52) Sven Butenschon-(3) Adrian Aucoin
(4) Roman Hamrlik-(24) Radek Martinek
(29) Kenny Jonsson-(44) Janne Niinimaa

GOALTENDERS
(30) Garth Snow
(39) Rick DiPietro

MONTREAL CANADIENS
FORWARDS
(26) Pierre Dagenais - (71) Mike Ribeiro - (20) Richard Zednik
(38) Jan Bulis - (11) Saku Koivu - (73) Michael Ryder
(37) Niklas Sundstrom - (90) Joe Juneau - (17) Jason Ward
(15) Darren Langdon - (94) Yanic Perreault - (22) Steve Begin

DEFENSEMEN
(44) Sheldon Souray - (5) Stephane Quintal
(79) Andrei Markov - (43) Patrice Brisebois
(52) Craig Rivet - (8) Michael Komisarek

GOALTENDERS
(60) Jose Theodore
(30) Mathieu Garon

 

GAME SUMMARY

1st Period Scoring

MON:(PP) Mike Ribeiro 15 (Sheldon Souray, Michael Ryder) 7:40 NYI:(PP) Justin Papineau 6 16:24 1st Period Penalties NYI: Dave Scatchard (Hooking, 2:00) 7:08 MON: Richard Zednik (High-sticking, 2:00) 15:39

2nd Period Scoring

None. 2nd Period Penalties NYI: Sven Butenschon (Cross-checking, 2:00) 13:33 NYI: Jason Blake (Slashing, 2:00) 15:34 NYI: Janne Niinimaa (Interference, 2:00) 18:19

3rd Period Scoring

MON:Michael Ryder 15 (Saku Koivu, Jan Bulis) 8:46 3rd Period Penalties MON: Saku Koivu (Obstruction-holding, 2:00) 0:45 NYI: Roman Hamrlik (Hooking, 2:00) 2:44

Shots	1st	2nd	3rd	Total
New York Islanders	10	13	5	28
Montreal Canadiens	14	16	8	38

Power-Play Conversions: MON: 1 of 5, NYI: 1 of 3

Goalies:
Ny Islanders: Garth Snow (38 shots, 36 saves; record: 13-13-3). 
Montreal: Jose Theodore (28 shots, 27 saves; record: 22-18-5).

 

ISLANDERS Player G A +/- Shots TOI Justin Papineau 1 0 0 1 08:31 Jason Blake 0 0 0 4 14:29 Trent Hunter 0 0 -1 3 18:43 Mariusz Czerkawski 0 0 0 3 13:06 Radek Martinek 0 0 0 2 12:27 Eric Manlow 0 0 0 2 06:04 Oleg Kvasha 0 0 0 2 19:09 Dave Scatchard 0 0 -1 2 15:14 Adrian Aucoin 0 0 -1 2 23:53 Mattias Weinhandl 0 0 0 1 08:04 Arron Asham 0 0 0 1 13:33 Sven Butenschon 0 0 -1 1 10:38 Shawn Bates 0 0 -1 1 18:57 Kenny Jonsson 0 1 0 1 25:10 Michael Peca 0 0 0 1 19:15 Cliff Ronning 0 0 0 1 17:16 Janne Niinimaa 0 0 0 0 26:27 Garth Snow 0 0 0 0 58:47 Roman Hamrlik 0 0 0 0 21:40

CANADIENS Player G A +/- Shots TOI Mike Ribeiro 1 0 0 4 21:46 Michael Ryder 1 1 +1 3 19:10 Sheldon Souray 0 1 0 6 25:31 Pierre Dagenais 0 0 0 4 13:18 Richard Zednik 0 0 0 4 20:24 Mike Komisarek 0 0 0 3 11:45 Jan Bulis 0 1 +1 3 16:35 Saku Koivu 0 1 +1 3 20:02 Jason Ward 0 0 0 2 15:19 Patrice Brisebois 0 0 +1 2 21:47 Andrei Markov 0 0 +1 1 19:25 Francis Bouillon 0 0 0 1 14:59 Yanic Perreault 0 0 0 1 09:13 Joe Juneau 0 0 0 1 16:14 Steve Begin 0 0 0 0 10:09 Jose Theodore 0 0 0 0 60:00 Niklas Sundstrom 0 0 0 0 13:46 Darren Langdon 0 0 0 0 05:15 Stephane Quintal 0 0 0 0 20:37

Stars: Mike Ribeiro(MON), Garth Snow(NYI), Michael Ryder(MON)
Referees: Marc Joannette, Dean Warren
Linesmen: Steve Barton, Michel Cormier
Attendance:21,273

IslesInfo Pregame Preview

Islanders-Canadiens Preview

.c The Associated Press 

GAME: New York Islanders (26-20-5-2) at Montreal Canadiens (27-20-6-2).

TIME: Thursday, 7:30 p.m. EST.

Apparently, eighth place is not good enough for the New York Islanders.

The surging Islanders try to move closer to the seventh-place Montreal Canadiens when the teams meet in their final game before the All-Star break.

For the second straight game, the Islanders won when trailing after two periods. Adrian Aucoin's power-play goal 36 seconds into overtime capped a wild finish and lifted New York to a 5-4 victory over visiting Vancouver on Tuesday.

``We could have slumped our heads down two goals, but we came back,'' said New York's Rick DiPietro, who made 21 saves. ``This was one of the best games I've seen in a long time.''

Captain Michael Peca and Mariusz Czerkawski each had a goal and two assists for the Islanders, who had been 0-17-2 this season when trailing after two periods before rallying for a 4-2 victory over Florida on Saturday.

The Islanders have gained at least a point in nine of their last 10 games (6-1-2-1) overall to move into eighth in the East, three points behind Montreal.

Making New York's current run even more impressive is that they are winning without star center Alexei Yashin and right wing Mark Parrish. Yashin has been sidelined since Dec. 23 with a lacerated forearm and Parrish has been out since Jan. 1 with a high ankle sprain.

With two of their top forwards sidelined, the Islanders have received strong play from Calder Trophy candidate Trent Hunter. The NHL leader among rookies with 19 goals, Hunter has four goals and seven assists in his last 10 games.

Montreal has taken advantage of a soft portion of its schedule with back-to-back wins over two of the NHL's worst teams - Chicago and Pittsburgh.

Saku Koivu and Niklas Sundstrom scored second-period goals Tuesday as the Canadiens handed the hapless Penguins their 11th straight loss, 4-3.

``Even when we took the 2-0 lead, we knew we were in for a fight,'' Montreal's Steve Begin said. ``You have to give them lots of credit.''

This game features the league's two leading rookie scorers. Montreal's Michael Ryder tops all rookies with 38 points - two ahead of Hunter.

STANDINGS (through Feb. 3): Islanders - 59 points, 3rd place, 9 PB, Atlantic Division. Canadiens - 62 points, 4th place, 7 PB, Northeast Division.

TEAM LEADERS: Islanders - Hunter, 19 goals and 36 points; Aucoin, 26 assists; Eric Cairns, 115 PIM. Canadiens - Richard Zednik, 19 goals; Mike Ribeiro, 31 assists and 45 points; Darren Langdon, 103 PIM.

SPECIAL TEAMS (through Feb. 3): Islanders - Power play: 16.7 percent (34 for 204), 12th in NHL. Penalty killing: 84.6 percent (198 for 234), 13th. Canadiens - Power play: 18.8 percent (39 for 208), 6th. Penalty killing: 82.5 percent (170 for 206), 22nd.

GOALTENDERS: Islanders - DiPietro (13-10-2, 2 SO, 2.29 GAA); Garth Snow (13-12-3, 1, 2.70). Canadiens - Jose Theodore (21-18-5, 5, 2.10); Mathieu Garon (6-4-1, 2.41).

SEASON SERIES: 1-1-0.

LAST MEETING: Nov. 13; Islanders, 3-1. At Uniondale, N.Y., Snow stopped 28 shots and Oleg Kvasha, Jason Blake and Parrish scored to lead the Islanders.

ROAD/HOME RECORDS: Islanders - 7-12-4-2 on the road; Canadiens - 14-10-4-0 at home.

Lets Go Isles!