Isles Down NHL Points Leader Nashville, 5-2

The Islanders continued to show some solid play against one of the leagues best, and it can give us some hope that maybe they'll get out of the 'rut' that they've found themselves in over the past few weeks when they had less than stellar outings against some of the teams fighting for lottery positions rather than playoff positions.

Isles Down Rangers as Season Resumes; Thoughts to Start '2nd Half'

A little snow couldn't keep the Islanders and Rangers from playing on Tuesday night. It couldn't keep the fans home either. I can't recall ever seeing the Nassau Coliseum that full so soon after a snowstorm but the fans showed up, loud and proud. It brought a fun atmosphere for what was an intense game to kick off the 2nd half of the season. It's key not to get lost in some of the intensity, and the Isles did their best to not let that happen despite the eight day break on their way to the 4-1 victory.

Isles Dominate Blue Jackets; Tavares Named to All-Star Roster

The Islanders gained some momentum for themselves heading into the game on Tuesday against a red hot New York Rangers team by defeating the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-2 on Saturday night. The game was the second of a back-to-back and after playing into extra time with the Devils in that previous night the Islanders certainly made a huge statement in Columbus.

Isles end Three Game Skid, Hawks Streak

And now, everyone breathe.

After dropping their previous three games including blowing two 3-0 leads, the Islanders completed a thrilling come from behind 3-2 win against the streaking Chicago Blackhawks, restoring some of the good vibes around the team after some fans began to worry and wonder about about a team that still had plenty of room to play with.

Halak Wins 11th Straight to Break Record as Isles Sweep Home-and-Home with Sens

Clearly, the Ottawa Senators are one of those pesky teams with a good grasp on defense and not a whole lot going on offensively. If you're going to beat them, you have to capitalize on any of the mistakes they make. The Islanders didn't do that often but did it just enough where they eked out two wins over them, sweeping the home-and-home series between Long Island and Ottawa.

Isles Blanked in Colorado

With their 5-0 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night, the Isles situation has become a bit of a concern with four games still remaining on a very tough road trip.

Obviously it's still early and a season is not made or broken at this point, however when you consider what's happened in past years as this team has gone into the beginning of November it makes the situation a bit precarious.

Isles Defeat Stars 7-5 Behind Nielsen's Hat Trick

The Islanders really like those track meets, don't they?

On Saturday night it was another high scoring affair, and for the second consecutive season an evenly matched Dallas Stars team came into the building and gave up a hat trick to an Islanders center.

Isles Battle Back to Split Home-and-Home with Flyers

I think we've all finally figured out the Isles strategy for winning games. They cannot have a lead going into the third period.

Once again, the team found themselves trailing after two, with the Flyers holding a 3-1 advantage. While it's tough to say two goal leads are commanding even in today's NHL, this was a game where the Isles did not look too crisp. As a matter of fact, both teams looked a bit sluggish, and the Isles caught a lot of breaks just because of miscues by the Flyers in the offensive zone.

Grabner Paces Isles in 5-3 win over Rangers

Michael Grabner chose a perfect time to snap out of his scoring slump, especially considering he's been doing many things right these days. Jack Capuano even said he was doing everything right except scoring, and I tend to agree with that statement of late. The Islanders were able to defeat their rivals thanks to Grabner's two goal performance, where he scored on a couple of breakaways to pace the Isles in a back-and-forth contest.

Vanek, Poulin Star to Give Isles Win vs. Bruins, Four Point Weekend

For the first time in what certainly seems like quite some time, the Islanders finally got all four points available on a back-to-back, and even won a game at home against a good team to do so. The Islanders snapped their funk at home and defeated the Bruins 3-1.

Sabres Earn First Victory on more Blown Leads by Isles

While it's certainly not time to panic yet with so many games left to play, the fact that the Islanders are having trouble playing against teams that (on the surface) they are better than does bring a cause for concern.

When I look at the way the last two games against the Nashville Predators and Buffalo Sabres have gone, I'm disappointed in the way this team has played. It's still the same problems we've seen recently.

Hawks Give Isles First Regulation Loss

We always hear the statement, but it never fails to be true. If you struggle to keep your legs moving you will lose, no matter how skilled your opponent is. The Islanders got stuck early on in the game in "deer-in-headlights" mode and although they came close, they ultimately were unable to recover.

Isles Spoil Devils Home Opener in Shootout

In similar fashion to what we would have seen towards the end of last season, the Islanders pulled out a shootout win over the New Jersey Devils in a game where they played pretty sloppy overall.

Neither side really had great defense, a trend that seems to be in concert with what the rest of the league has been experiencing over the first week of the new season. When you pair that with the smaller equipment that the goalies are now required to wear it makes for some high scoring contests.

Pens Take Game 3 over Isles in OT with Strong Powerplay

If there was ever a time for the New York Islanders to make a statement that they were relevant to the NHL again, doing so Sunday on national TV was the perfect forum to do so. And overall, the Islanders made their fans proud and really for the first time in a while turned heads.

You really have to look no further than what’s being said by every analyst from one coast to another regarding the penalty assessed to Brian Strait in overtime for the way he played Sidney Crosby peeling off of the side boards.

A penalty in October. Not in overtime in the playoffs.

The Penguins scored on the resulting powerplay, bringing a great deal of frustration to the Islanders, their fans, and anyone out there actively rooting against the Pens in this series (which I’m pretty sure is 95% of all other fanbases at this point).

The Islanders let a fast start get away from them, allowing the Penguins to get back into this game with some undisciplined play, started off by Mark Streit and Travis Hamonic in what were both fair calls. As mentioned in the last post, you CANNOT let this team get the man advantage with the guys they put out there. In a flash, the energy was sucked away for a spell and that came to a head when Pascal Dupuis buried a nice cross ice pass from Crosby, with John Tavares unable to do enough to disturb Dupuis, giving the Penguins a 3-2 lead heading into the first intermission.

You have to give all the credit to the world though to this Islander team, who battled and fought their way through even after giving up a goal to Douglas Murray to give the Pens the 4-2 advantage. It left many of us in the building wondering if the Islanders had yet another game of storming back against these guys in them, and they did.

Feeding off energy from one another and the crowd the Isles busted through, and while on a penalty kill Frans Nielsen somehow recovered a puck after losing it off his stick, turning it around and firing it up ice to a streaking Kyle Okposo. It’s hard to put into words what exactly Okposo does here, but the eruption of the crowd after scoring on the breakaway is probably the best way to put it. I’ll never know how he didn’t lose that puck in his skates and was able contort his body that way.

Nassau Coliseum was a home again, and this was accentuated by John Tavares, the face resulting from 20 years of struggling to find an identity and a string of consistent, good play. It was Tavares who scored the goal that tied the game, leaving the building with nothing to do other than chant “M-V-P.”

The Islanders had a huge opportunity on the powerplay not long after that, but were unable to capitalize. That’s becoming an alarming trend especially when you are trying to take down a team as tough as Pittsburgh.

The Islanders had their chances in the overtime too, but they missed a couple of opportunities and in some cases the Pens got away with cheap shots that left them unable to bury those chances.

Overall, the game wasn’t the best officiated, but it wasn’t the worst either. In the interest of fairness, from where my seats were there were several instances where Isles’ defensemen interfered with Pens players on the boards (blatant holding), just feet in front of the refs that went uncalled. So it goes both ways.

But as mentioned earlier, that’s a pretty tacky call in overtime for two teams that were playing their hearts out.

It was a solid hockey game all around, and for the second straight game the Islanders outworked and outplayed the opponent (well, for most of two games). They can beat this team but need to be a little more disciplined.

It was not a banner game for Strait, and I’m still not opposed to benching him in the next game. He had some solid moments and was key in Game 2, however Crosby is a very tough match-up for him and you need a better effort with Hamonic’s hands full of Evgeni Malkin. Radek Martinek has done this before, guarded against Crosby for the Isles and would be my choice for Game 4 in place of Strait who’s clearly not at 100% still.

It’s very hard to find anything negative here aside from the discipline, a shaky defensive play here and there and goaltending.

The latter deserves it own category as Evgeni Nabokov has struggled mightily this series. It’s tough to put full blame here and go all-out declaring this was why San Jose always choked but let’s be honest with ourselves. They’re playing a Penguins team that’s got two of the best three players in the league and a top-5 defenseman in the league on their man advantage. If you continue to give them these chances it won’t matter who is in the net.

Bottom line: Nabokov has given up some softies, and that has to change. In the past month we’ve some of the craziest saves from him, and almost one in every game. But that’s been absent through the first three games against the Pens here.

The forwards all came to play and all executed their roles pretty well. The most alarming however is Matt Moulson, who opened the scoring and pretty much disappeared the rest of the way. Brad Boyes is having trouble sustaining offensive momentum but I have liked the way he’s thrown his body around a bit. But he needs to be better with the puck and quickly get himself back in the slot area.

The crowd is one final thing to address here. Can you tell we’ve been waiting a long time for this?

I’m thrilled to say I was able to be a part of that atmosphere because I never had been. The last playoff game I was at had thousands of screaming Sabres fans there. But not Sunday. Sunday was virtually all Islanders, with a scattering of Pens fans here and there throughout the building.

The building left me speechless; as I’m sure it did the same for many of you. It sets up a really intense situation for Game 4 on Tuesday, and that’s become a talking point around the league with several people – media and fans alike - taking notice and calling this the loudest home game of the playoffs thus far.

A few adjustments need to be made heading into Tuesday, but there’s no doubt the Islanders will attempt to make them. They made the adjustments from Friday into Sunday, but allowed themselves to get into penalty troubles again which cost them the game more than anything else, quite frankly, including the officiating. If that 5-on-3 situation never comes up, we’re not even discussing the Strait penalty in overtime.

If the Isles can come out on Tuesday and play their game with some minor adjustments, they stand a very good shot of ending the home playoff game futility streak, and turn this into a three game series.

- Chris

Okposo, Isles Ruin Crosby's Return to Stun Pens and Even Series

Since their Game 1 showing on Wednesday night, the Islanders did a lot of talking about playing in the playoffs, adjusting to a different style, and what is required to be competitive. Both John Tavares and Evgeni Nabokov talked about how playing at a playoff intensity level was "supposed to hurt" and how they just didn't get the job done.

Isles Suffer Game 1 Letdown, Pens win 5-0

Since we found out on Sunday night that the Islanders would slide to the 8th spot and be playing the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, lots of speculation ensued - mainly centered on how many games Pittsburgh would win in.

Of course, at the very least we wanted to see the Isles play well, keeping the games close and maybe even stealing one on the road from a Pens team that is still trying to get to full health, which is scary when you realize the depth that they already have in place.

After much anticipation and a quiet start, the Pens broke through quickly on the powerplay when Beau Bennett put an odd angled shot past Evgeni Nabokov three and a half minutes into the game and it snowballed from there for the Islanders.

I felt that in the early going, despite the goal the Islanders were handling things fine but you knew they had to be better once the Pens finished their feeling out process. That didn't happen and the Islanders paid dearly for it. With every chance that Pittsburgh was getting up the middle of the ice, the Islanders freaked out and it created all sorts of problems for the better parts of two periods.

I know a lot of people are already on a Nabokov bashing kick, which quite frankly is unwarranted after what happened here. This is playoff hockey - you cannot leave your goalie out to dry, which the Islanders did so many times this season that you could almost see this coming.

I said on the show this past weekend and I will reiterate: I don't see any benefit to Brian Strait playing in games right now. He was coming off a major ankle injury, and has not looked strong since returning. His speed is shot right now and this was evident on a few Penguins rushes in Game 1. I like him and he's a solid defenseman, but the rust from the injury has not been shaken off yet. This should be Radek Martinek's spot, and that’s a move I'd like to see for Game 2.

We can talk all we want about how the Isles had been playing in the "playoffs" for a month but that is always misleading. On Wednesday night they got to witness the difference and experienced a Pens team that was prepared to play the several notches above regular season play that is required by all playoff teams.

And this doesn't only apply to the Isles. Just look at what happened to the Toronto Maple Leafs, who have finally ended their playoff drought and get to match-up with the Boston Bruins. They were slaughtered in their own way, struggling to even get shots off against a Bruins defensive structure that has enough experience to know how to tighten up come Spring. Time and space is not given as it would be in the regular season.

The Islanders effort was not there for most of the night, but did improve later on in the game when the Penguins were perhaps taking their foot off the gas a little bit.

However, despite this there were some silver linings.

John Tavares looked like he was made for playoff hockey, despite the fact the Penguins bothered him all night. He had some nice rushes but couldn't get the chances off at the last moments in some cases but you could see he knew where to be, what to do, and the intensity that's required. This is more than we can say about several of his counterparts.

Kevin Poulin came into a difficult situation and did an admirable job replacing Nabokov, making some nice saves and only giving up one goal of his own. He wasn't tested as much as Nabokov, but it was nice to see him shake off some jitters after his unexpected first playoff appearance.

The Penguins got their scoring from some unlikely sources, Pascal Dupuis aside. I felt the Isles did a good enough job neutralizing Evgeni Malkin (despite his two points, which came during powerplay time). James Neal suffered a concussion (no details as to the extent) and Sidney Crosby is an unknown at this point as far as his availability (we'll assume game-by-game).

Given that, it's a shame the Islanders really couldn't compete in their first playoff game in six years. But if these players are still in limbo by Game 2, then it becomes a must win. The Penguins would still have Malkin, Jarome Iginla and Brendan Morrow, but the job is slightly easier with Neal's potential absence.

Personally, I don't see the Isles getting blown out in any more games this series. I'd expect them to be a bit closer now that they've seen what a playoff game is REALLY like.

Will Capuano make the necessary changes to reverse the Isles fortunes? They've taken steps away from what's made them successful and need to snap out of it, bear down and realize what more they need to do. As a matter of fact, Tavares and Nabokov said it the best themselves when asked about it during the post game. They need to recognize the fact that they need to battle even harder, and that winning in the playoffs is "supposed to hurt."

That message needs to be sent throughout the organization before 7 PM on Friday.

- Chris

Isles Prep for Sens after 7-0 Massacre by Flyers

Ugly. There really aren't any words to describe what we all witnessed in Uniondale on Presidents Day against the Philadelphia Flyers. It was truly a Monday massacre.

The Islanders gave you a preview of this game barely 30 seconds in. And we all know what it means when we say it's going to be one of those games. This was definitely one of them.

Isles Powerplay Silent Against Devils, Fall 3-0

After playing each other twice before, the Islanders and Devils definitely felt that they had a handle on the style the other played. And both teams, remembering the offensive outburst by the other side from Thursday night played hesitant for the first 30 minutes of this game.

Islanders Beat Devils in OT; Strait Gets 3 Years; Visnovsky Reportedly Arrives Next Week

In what proved to be one of their biggest tests of the young season, the Islanders bent but never broke after blowing a two goal lead against the New Jersey Devils, ultimately winning 5-4 in overtime in a game that was quite exciting and gave the Isles a share of first place.

Grabner, Nabokov Star as Isles Beat Pens 4-1

One concern everyone had about the Islanders going to Pittsburgh was how much of an effect the crushing overtime loss to the Winnipeg Jets in the previous game would have on the outcome. Clearly, the answer was not much.