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ISLES INFO |
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ISLES INFO |
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IslesInfo Comments: The Islanders knew that tonight's game was just as big as last night's when the hated Toronto Maple Leafs were in town. While Toronto was a much easier game to get up for, another two points were at hand tonight and a chance to creep even closer to 8th place in the East. The Isles ended any thoughts of a post Toronto hangover just 1:10 into the game. It would be the line of Brad Isbister-Michael Peca-Arron Asham that would get things going. Isbister initially sent the puck into the corner where Asham fought for it with some Pittsburgh defensemen. Asham seemed as though he was pinned and tried to freeze up the puck with his skate to get a whistle and an offensive zone faceoff. But the officials wanted them to play. So Asham kicked at the puck and it bounced out hard off a Penguin skate. Peca managed to get a poor angle on another Penguin defenseman and as he reached for it he backhanded it up over the arm of Pittsburgh goaltender Johan Hedberg for a 1-0 lead. It was Peca's first goal of the season in his 12th game after returning from major knee surgery. At 6:29 Pittsburgh would get it back on a very questionable goal. Martin Straka sent the puck across the Islanders blueline and it looked as though the puck crossed the line and out into the neutral zone. Now the offside rule calls for ANY portion of the puck reaching into the neutral zone to be offside. The linesman missed the call and defenseman Hans Jonsson blasted a shot under the high crossbar over Garth Snow to make it 1-1. It was Jonsson's first point of the season. No relation to Kenny Jonsson. It was a rare point for a Pittsburgh defenseman who are experiencing injury problems at the position. Only Dick Tarnstrom, who is rehabilitating a broken foot, has any real points. Josef Melichar and Michal Rozsival are also out with injuries. Rozsival is out with a separated shoulder courtesy of a Steve Webb hit back on November 16th. It didn't take long for the Isles to gain the lead back. At 10:25 Jason Blake came down the left hand boards and made a beautiful drop pass to Jason Wiemer. Wiemer then had a two on one with Dave Scatchard. Hedberg must have overplayed the pass because Wiemer potted in his 5th of the season to make it 2-1. It was the second straight game Wiemer scored. A little over two mintes later, 12:38, the Islanders would lose track of Mario Lemieux on a play from behind the net and Mario would shoot in by Snow near the right post to tie the game at 2-2 with his 13th of the season. Both teams were unsuccessful on a powerplay opportunity in the first. - The Islanders were even better in the second period as they scored another two goals, this time not allowing any. They got into some penalty problems, something the Isles didn't want to do against the Penguins whose powerplay is ranked 1st in the league. In fact, the Islanders would take 4 straight and had to kill two separate 5 on 3 advantages. The first was 38 seconds and came early in the period. At 7:50 Isbister would feed Asham with the puck just inside the Penguins blueline. Asham skated into the slot where he has been going as of late to take the shot. It hit Peca in the back of the leg. As Hedberg went down expecting Peca to get another chance, one of his own defensemen chipped at it and it bounced over the goaltender and into the net. It also bounced over Isbister's stick. He didn't touch it. Since Peca was the last to touch the puck, or be touched in this case, he was credited with his second goal of the season and the game to make it 3-2. This time the Isles would break it open. Pittsburgh would call their timeout to rest their players after the second 5 on 3(which lasted 1:11), for the rest of the 5 on 4. But Peca said during a post game interview that he told his players "we're not getting scored on." The penalty ended at 13:44, and at 14:25 the Isles would break down the ice. Alexei Yashin would chip the puck up to Mark Parrish from inside the Islanders zone. Parrish found Isbister headed down the left side and fed him the puck. Isbister skated in on another two on one with Parrish. As he got down low he made a beautiful backhand pass underneath a Pittsburgh defenseman right over back to Parrish, who buried it for his 8th of the season to make it 4-2. That gave Isbister 3 assists in the game. The Islanders scored two goals on only 4 shots in the second period. Pittsburgh only had 5 themselves after all that PP time. Excellent PK by the Isles. - Early in the third period Snow made some of his best stops of the game keeping the Islanders up by two goals. The Isles would finally get a 5 on 3 of their own. At 10:30 they capitalized on the trailing 5 on 4 when Isbister would backhand his team leading 9th of the season on a rebound from right in front of Hedberg to make it 5-2. That gave Izzy a goal and 3 assists in the game for a career high of four points. He also had 3 points Friday night against Toronto. 7 points in two games for Izzy, maybe good enough for NHL player of the week? Peca assisted on the goal to give him 3 points in the game. At 11:45 Pittsburgh would make it 5-3 when Straka would make a perfect mid air deflection by Snow off a Janne Laukkanen point shot for his 6th of the season. But the Islanders were unphased and soon began to use the clock and the score to their advantage. They just got the puck out of their zone and put it deep in the Pittsburgh end. At 18:08, Scatchard would clear the puck into the neutral zone from the deep corner. Wiemer suddenly saw a chance for a breakaway and with two guys behind him skated in on Hedberg all alone. He didn't really make a move, hoping to get it through the goalie. Hedberg made the sprawling stop, but the rebound came out and Blake buried it into the open bet for his 6th of the season to ice the game at 6-3. Perfect weekend: Everything the Islanders needed to happen this weekend pretty much went down perfectly. First they defeated the Leafs in the highly anticipated and emotional rematch. Pittsburgh lost to New Jersey 3-1 Friday night which gave the Islanders a chance to pull within 3 points with a win tonight. They did. Also, Florida lost 4-0 at home to Edmonton tonight, leaving them at 28 points as well. Montreal defeated Phoenix 4-2 so the Canadiens now have 28 points too. - The Isles caught a little bit of a break when it was announced before the game that Islander killer Alexei Kovalev would miss the game with a tricep injury. - The Islanders now come home for a Tuesday night game against the Chicago Blackhawks. And guess who will be back in town? Yes, move over Darcy Tucker. Our other favorite whipping boy is back. Theo Fleury. The Islanders don't seem to play the Blackhawks that often, but when they have Chicago is another team they have not faired too well against. The Isles have one win in their last 21 against Chicago and only won once at the home Nassau Coliseum against Chicago since 1985. -
The Isles are now 6-2-2 in their last 10 games and pulled back to .500 on
the road. The Islanders are 4-0-1 in their last 5 games in Pittsburgh.
With the loss Pittsburgh drops their 4th straight. Fight Card: none. Commentary: SWEET!! What a perfect weekend. It was starting to get scary there and the way we were playing last week had me worried. With the Islanders top three lines all contributing offensively, my original belief that this team was deeper than last years team may actually finally proof itself correct. It just took some time. Of course this team still has a long way to go to get where last seasons team was at this time. But we can finally say they are on their way as the Isles open up the month of December 3-0-0. I was really impressed with the attitude of the team and the fact that they overcame any post Toronto hangover. They have done much better in this department over the last few season following an emotional game, as well as on second nights of back to back games. Even though now there is only two days off in between Tuesday nights game I hope they won't lose the momentum. They got to just keep this thing going. There's no doubt in my mind the Islanders are better than Florida, Montreal and Pittsburgh. They hopefully will leapfrog those teams soon.
Report Card: Brad Isbister: A career 4 point night with his team leading 9th goal and 3 assists. This is after he had a goal and two assists last night against Toronto. This is the Isbister that fans have been dreaming about for 3 years now. Could he be the player of the week in the NHL? He didn't have a point in the Islanders win over Vancouver, but 7 points in the last two nights could do it. I know i've said recently that you just can't expect him to be Todd Bertuzzi, but who would have ever thought Brad would be leading a team in goals 27 games in, a team with Alexei Yashin on it? Alexei Yashin: Assisted on Parrish's game winning goal. Other than that a bit quiet but solid. His line with Bates and Parrish still has yet to really get going like the other two lines have. Shawn Bates: Played well but didn't record a point tonight and is searching for a goal. Mark Parrish: Scored his first goal since coming back from the flu last week and it was the game winner. Dave Scatchard: Had two assists centering the Isles very hot line with Wiemer and Blake. Jason Wiemer: At the beginning of the season I said he was a bust and often looked to be skating in mud. Well, things have gotten better, in fact they've totally turned around. Wiemer had a goal and an assist tonight and is contributing nicely. His presence had made the Islanders deeper in all aspects on the forward lines. Jason Blake: Added a goal and an assist as Blake continues to have a career year. Claude Lapointe: Played well defensively on the fourth line. Had a good chance to score late in the game on a two on one with Peca. He elected to take the shot and deflected it off Hedberg. Peca was looking for the hat trick at the time and Isbister could have had his 5th point after making the pass to Lapointe. Steve Webb: His hit on Michal Rozsival separated the defenseman's shoulder and he's still out. Webb had a few good shifts tonight as well. But not like last night against the Leafs. Arron Asham: His 2 assists tonight gave him 11 points on the season which is already a career high. He went 5-4-9 in 35 games last season with Montreal. He is 5-6-11 in 24 games with the Islanders this season. Oleg Kvasha: Was re-inserted into the lineup because Laviolette figured it would be more of a finesse game against Pittsburgh. Kvasha played on the fourth line. He didn't do too much but he did play well on a few penalty killing situations. Give the guy credit though. Most players would probably be upset getting scratched for a rematch between the Isles and Leafs. But he also seems to struggle with puck control and gave it up a few times tonight. Michael Peca: His first two goals of the season. The captain got the Islanders going tonight by scoring his first on a beautiful effort. Now that he is starting to find his offense, opposing teams better watch out because Peca is officially 100% BACK. Mattias Weinhandl: Shoulder Sprain. One week to go. Eric Godard: Assigned to Bridgeport earlier today. Defense: Roman Hamrlik: Led all Islander players with 5 shots on goal. He didn't record a point and has been stuck on 99 career points as an Islander for about a week now. Adrian Aucoin: Didn'y record a point either but played excellent defense and took a stick to the nose late in the game that went unpenalized. He was ok and returned shortly after. Eric Cairns: Was very good in his own end as usual. Kenny Jonsson: Assisted on Isbister's powerplay goal in the third period playing alongside the oppsing teams net. Radek Martinek: Had a strong game defensively. May have missed Mario Lemieux which led to his goal. But the entire play wasn't all his fault. It just seems sometimes that whenever he's on the ice and the opposing team scores, the camera man is focusing on him. Sometimes unwarranted. Mattias Timander: Nothing flashy but steady defensively. Goal: Garth Snow: Always seems to come up with a big game on the second of back to back nights. He did it in Tampa Bay two weeks ago, the game where he received his suspension. He improves his record to 2-4-1.
Coaches Laviolette has done a good job getting the guys to focus on the games at hand, and should be credited with helping the team make sure they did not suffer any hangover from Friday night. Special Teams Powerplay went 1-4 and is ranked 21st in the league. The PK was another perfect 6-6 and has moved up to 23rd in the league. The Islanders have only allowed 2 powerplay goals against in the last 8 games. Michael Peca has helped the PK improve dramatically since his return.
Islanders Pound Penguins 6-3
Lineups: ISLANDERS DEFENSEMEN GOALTENDERS PITTSBURGH DEFENSEMEN GOALTENDERS
Power-play Conversions:
NYI - 1 of 4, PIT - 0 of 6.
IslesInfo Pregame Preview Preview Isles Eye 8th Place Pens Dec 7: The Islanders come back tonight just 24 hours after an emotional 4-2 win over the hated Toronto Maple Leafs Friday night at the Nassau Coliseum. Red hot Arron Asham and the rest of the Isles are looking to continue their winning ways. Isles vs. Pittsburgh Preview: The Islanders are hoping they won't have any post Maple Leaf hangover tonight after playing such an emotionally charged game last night and coming away with a 4-2 win. The team is focused and knows that this game tonight against the Penguins is just as big. Because the big picture is all about making the playoffs. Right now, the Penguins, losers of their last three, are holding the last playoff position in the East with 28 points. The Islanders with 23 points could draw to within 3 points tonight with a win and a Florida loss to Edmonton. The Isles main goal is obviously to have a strong December and hopefully draw back to the .500 mark by Christmas time. Then beginning in the new year they can make their move among the top eight. But they got to get there first and last night was another good start. Just when it seems like the Isles are on the tightrope they come away with a win to remain in the race. Now they can't look back. Arron Asham is hot with 3 goals in his last two games. Jason Wiemer is another player to watch. He scored his first goal as an Islander the last time the Isles visited Pittsburgh three weeks ago. Brad Isbister is hot as he has been a game breaker The Islanders got good games but not any offensive production from some of their big guns last night, namely Alexei Yashin and the scratched from the linup Oleg Kvasha. Yashin had his 9 game point scoring streak snapped last night. Oleg will probably return to the lineup tonight against the more offensive and finesse minded Penguins. Eric Godard was returned to Bridgeport today after playing in his 2nd NHL game last night. The Isles could use some offense tonight from the blueline, since the ice surface is bigger in Pittsburgh. That usually helps the Isles powerplay spread out and has often been successful in Pittsburgh. The Islanders defeated Pittsburgh 3-2 back on November 16th in the Mellon Arena. - The Islanders are 3-0-1 in their last 4 games at the Igloo.
Playoff Race Heats Up When you think of the Pittsburgh Penguins, you think of one thing...the powerplay. Led by Mario Lemieux, Isle killer Alexei Kovalev and former Islander, but out with an injury, defenseman Dick Tarnstrom, the Pens powerplay is lethal.
Note: Pittsburgh powerplay is operating at a 32.8% conversion rate, tops in the NHL. The Islanders PK will have to be at the top of it's game to stop Pittsburgh. Mario Lemiuex will be without defenseman Dick Tarnstrom who is out with a broken foot. The former Isles was claimed off waivers this summer and then left unprotected in the waiver draft. In his first 21 games this season he already surpassed his offensive total with the Isles last year, 19 points in 62 games. If the Islanders can show the samew type of discipline they did last night against Toronto, they should cut down on Pittsburgh's powerplay chances. Martin Straka is hot as of late. He scored 9 points in his first 10 games after returning from a back injury in early November. Basically, if you can either keep the Penguins off the powerplay, get good PK and shut down their top line the Penguins are very beatable.
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Lets Go Isles! |
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1998-2003 Tom Mascioli
