Having three days off between hockey games during the week is sometimes bad and sometimes good. When the Islanders are going bad those days can not go by fast enough. The bad taste in my mouth needs to be cleansed like a palate between entrees during a five course dinner. On the other hand, when the Islanders are going good those days are more manageable. It provides time to reflect on how well the team is doing and it creates more excitement for the next game coming up. Right now, I could not wait any longer for Friday's game against the Red Wings in Detroit. I have reflected long enough, time to get back to winning hockey games.
Good news going into this one. Not only was I getting healthy and getting rid of my Rhine River cold, but the Islanders were getting healthy. Johnny Boychuk and Travis Hamonic were taken off of injured reserve and were back in the line-up tonight, which meant that Griffin Reinhart was targeted to return to Bridgeport. The kid played well and has improved, but needs to develop a little bit more and will do so with top line minutes with the Sound Tigers. The Islanders went into the game with a healthy defense for the first time in weeks. First time in a long time you saw Leddy-Boychuk, Hamonic-deHaan, and Visnovsky-Hickey out there. With a confident Halak in goal it was going to be interesting to see what would develop. As for the forwards, the only change was Josh Bailey moving up to the top line to play with John Tavares and Kyle Okposo. Nikolay Kulemin moved down to the second line to play with his buddy Mikhail Grabovski and Frans Nielsen.
The first period started with the Islanders on their heels. They did not spend a lot of time in Detroit's zone and when they did get there they could not generate a coordinated attack and looked to be rushing everything. Detroit on the other hand did a good job controlling play in front of Halak. At about the nine minute mark, Zetterberg got the Red Wings on the board with a screen shot after an turnover by Lubomir Visnovsky at the Islanders blue line. New York picked up their play after killing off a penalty and started to generate some good scoring chances. Hard work paid off when Brock Nelson banged home a rebound past Jimmy Howard for his 14th goal of the year. The goal came with a little over three minutes left in the period and was helped by Visnovsky and Lee. The Red Wings dominated the first ten minutes of the period, however, the Islanders dominated the last ten minutes. The Isles had the edge in shots 8-6. It basically looked like New York had to get some rust out of their system after having three straight days off.
To start the second Petr Mrazek replaced Jimmy Howard in goal for Detroit due to a lower-body injury. New York got an early power play and the Islanders looked pretty crisp. They had five scoring chances and four shots on goal but Mrazek off the bench was sharp out of the gate. The Islanders continued their strong play and then pressured the Red Wings into their own turnover right in front of Mrazek. Brock Nelson stick-handed a couple of times and was stopped only to have Anders Lee swoop in and jam it home a couple of inches in front of the goal line for a 2-1 Isles lead. The rest of the period was pretty even even though the Islanders out shot Detroit 16-7. Over the first two periods the Islanders not only led in shots they also dominated the face-off circle by winning 64% of the rugby scrums for the first two periods. Those stats reflected the obvious shift in the momentum and validated why the Islanders had the lead going into the last period.
I wish I had a lot to write about in the third period, but I don't, and that necessarily is not a bad thing. The Red Wings started the period with about 90 seconds left on a power play after a Clutterbuck penalty at the end of the second. The Islanders killed it off and then locked down defensively for the rest of the period. They had a couple of empty net chances after Mrazek was caught wandering away from his crease. Overall it was a very boring but very steady defensive effort in the third period. The only scare came on an Islanders power play with about three minutes left when Zetterberg got a short-handed opportunity but missed the net wide right. The Isles barely out shot the Wings in the third 7-5 but dominated over the course of the game 32-18. Probably one of their best defensive efforts of the year.
The Islanders improved to 22-10. The kid line (i.e., Strome, Nelson and Lee) shined tonight and factored in both goals. The top two lines are still a concern and need to start generating some offense. Its nice to get balanced scoring, but balanced means that everyone needs to contribute. After a short flight home, the Islanders will be at home to face the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night. It will be interesting to see if Capuano gives Chad Johnson a shot or goes back to Halak who has been consistently hot for quite awhile now. It wasn't a very exciting evening, but winning never gets boring.
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