The Islanders had a shot at redemption on Monday night against the New York Rangers, but ended up failing in their attempt.
Neither team got a lot of shots in early, but the Islanders looked disinterested and disoriented at various point of the game. They really could have done themselves a favor and taken advantage early on as the Rangers tried to find their game, but they didn't.
Meanwhile, this game continued an alarming trend that has been going on, where the Islanders appear to be out played, out hustled, out coached and out classed.
The line of John Tavares, Matt Moulson and P.A. Parenteau was the only one doing anything of substance as they continuously generated scoring chances.
The defensemen took a number of shots at the point, with many of them getting blocked. However, Milan Jurcina had a standout performance as far as they go.
Evgeni Nabokov played well enough to win, but the Islanders and their lack of a system and offensive fire power were unable to give him any support.
This game marked two completely different tales for the New York rivals. The Rangers are trending upwards, and have streaked themselves all the way up to the top of the Eastern Conference. Meanwhile, the Islanders find themselves in 15th once again before New Years Day even comes around.
It's been very frustrating to watch players like Tavares do everything in their power to create a scoring chance, only to be easily neutralized by three opposing players. They have this ability to cover him as the others around him don't have the skill level as Tavares does, making him an easy target when it comes to an opposing game plan.
Micheal Haley had a great fight with Stu Bickel, the kind that aren't scripted and done from the heart. It was great to see, but unfortunately resulted in a hand contusion for Haley.
The Islanders have a few days to let this one eat away at them, and hopefully it does. It's way past the point of where they should have gotten agitated with the way things have gone. At practice on Tuesday, Kyle Okposo was playing on the first line with Tavares and Moulson. It's about time the lines were shuffled to play with certain players strengths.
More to come.
-Chris
nyifyi@gmail.com
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1 comment:
Well, the sleepwalking seemingly ended last night. A solid victory over Calgary now gives the NYI an opportuinty to build some foward momentum and string together a winning streak against an average at best EDM.
From the team that never seems to miss the opportunity to miss an opportunity to change their fortunes, we have another squarely in hand.
Perhaps they can draw some inspriation from the Ken Morrow indcution to the NYI HOF in the pregame (BTW the ceremony and game v EDM are on MSG Network, not MSG+ as is normally the case tomorrow) and rely on some ghosts of past success to drive some current victory.
We can all hope as much.
Until then, enjoy some videos from Potvin and Morrow I found:
MORROW: http://bit.ly/t66cgJ
POTVIN: http://bit.ly/ux9tUV
Fischler: http://bit.ly/rDNn7m
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