Tonight the Islanders took on the Tampa Bay Lightning on the back end of a home and home series. The Islanders lost the first game which broke their five-game winning streak. They didn't play the greatest game on Saturday so I was really looking forward to tonight to see how they would respond. What made tonight more interesting is that it was the return of if Evgeni Nabokov to the Nassau Coliseum. He had not played in 10 days so it was going to be interesting to see how sharp he would be. I do remember from his prior years of playing with the Islanders that whenever he was off for a long period of time he always came back very sharp. Halak, who had been playing well of late, was in goal for the Islanders.
I worked a little late tonight so I tried to listen to the game in the car on the way home. However, I could not get a good cell signal and there was a lot of dead air. Whenever I got a connection I only got a minute or two of information. All I could tell was that there was no score in the game. As I arrived home I checked the score and saw that Tampa Bay took a 1–0 lead. After feeding the cats, I went downstairs to the man cave and put the game on. The first period ended with the very same score. For some reason I didn't feel all that confident for this game. I felt a loss coming on. I would turn out to be very wrong.
The Lightning started the second period with a power-play. However, at the 39 second mark, Cal Clutterbuck took an errant pass and wristed one past Nabokov to tie the game. The Islanders went on to kill off the balance of the penalty and then just as Hickey was coming out of the box, Stamkos was called for a tripping penalty. There was all of sudden a feeling that the tide was turning. The Islanders failed to convert on the man advantage, which is starting to become a little concerning. After starting off the season with a very hot power-play, they have been struggling as of late.
Capuano started to juggle his lines by moving Tavares and Okposo around a bit. It worked. A little past half way through the period, Grabovski got a neat pass from Neilsen to give the Islanders a 2-1 lead. It was his 4th goal of the year. Less than a minute later Ryan Strome wristed another goal past Nabokov for a 3-1 lead. After playing a very strong first period, Nabokov was starting to show the same form that he had shown all too frequently as an Islander the past couple of years. Right at the end of the second period, Tampa Bay took another penalty which gave the Islanders a power-play to start the third period.
The Islanders converted to start the third. Visnovsky took a slap shot which seemed to be tipped in by Brock Nelson for his 9th goal of the season. All of a sudden, in what seemed to be a blink of an eye, it was 4-1 and the Islanders were in control. The Lightning would get one back, but then Casey Czikas was turned loose on a breakaway and roofed his 2nd goal of the year to make it 5-2. That is the way it ended.
As I said, I really wanted to see how this team was going to respond. The first period was a little sluggish with a number of errant passes. However, the Islanders picked it up in the second period and once they scored, they smelled blood and went in for the kill. They played solid the rest of the way. What made it that much more impressive is that the Lightning have been one of the better teams in the league this year and on Saturday they dominated play. Tonight was the Islanders turn to get even. It also did not hurt that Nabby was in goal.
Next up is another back-to-back and home-and-home with the Pittsburgh Penguins who sit in first place in the Metropolitan Division a few points ahead of the Islanders. As 0Clutterbuck said after the game, “It's no secret that Pittsburgh isn't liked around here, so we'll take care of game one and beat them here on Saturday.” If you are an Islander fan, you got to like the confidence. Now they need to go out and make it happen.
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