Well its time to get a little bit concerned Islander fans. Jaroslav Halak was put on the injured reserve list retroactive to December 20th with a lower body injury. He was given the last game off as a "maintenance day", however now that he has missed a second game in a row and is on injured reserve one wonders how serious it may be. However, Saturday morning Halak did skate so that was a good sign that it is not serious. The Islanders are still calling it a maintenance issue so let's see what happens in the next few days.
The Islanders were in Buffalo on Saturday to play an improving Sabres team, It was also an opportunity to reunite with former Islander Matt Moulson, who spent Christmas day with his old teammates. The rest of the Isles line-up was the same as the one that lost to Montreal before the break. Buffalo countered with Jhonas Enroth in net. While watching the game I could not help but think that every time the Buffalo announcers said "Enroth" it sounded a lot like "Enron". That is a reference to the energy and commodities company that filed for bankruptcy in 2001 in the midst of a national scandal arising from a planned accounting fraud. Would Enroth would also turn out to be a fraud?
It was not a surprise that Kevin Poulin was called up. But when you look at the fact that he had a 34 shot shut out Friday night and had to travel to Buffalo it was a surprise that he got the start in net. One one hand, maybe it made sense to go with the hot hand. Capuano said before the game that Poulin deserved the start based on his play this year. So far for Bridgeport Poulin was 10-6-4-1 with a 2.41 goals against average and a .928 save percentage. That makes you wonder about the lack of confidence that management and the coaching staff have in Chad Johnson. It will be interesting to see how Poulin plays and what happens in the next few days when Halak returns.
The Islanders started well and spent almost the first two minutes in the Sabres offensive zone. Poulin looked confident in net and had a few early kick saves to boot. In just a few short minutes Poulin looked much better in net than Chad Johnson. On a couple of occasions, Poulin had to stretch out to keep the puck out of the net. The Poulin Wall turned away ten shots during the period.
New York got on the board first just before the five minute mark with a goal by Nick Leddy. The defenseman took a harmless shot from the left point and it snuck by a Josh Bailey screen to get by Enroth for the 1-0 lead. It was Leddy's 6th goal of the year from Okposo and Bailey. Other than that, it was a pretty even period with the Sabres having a slight edge in shots 10-9. Right at the end of the period one of the Sabres took an unnecessary roughing penalty on Cal Clutterbuck which gave the Islanders a power play to start the second period.
The power play to start the second period fizzled once again. It is almost getting to the point where the Islanders should start to decline the power plays. All it is doing nowadays is wasting two minutes at a time. During the period Buffalo had three power plays of their own and Poulin stood tall on each one. Then at around the ten minute mark Kyle Okposo got to the puck behind the Sabres net and pushed it along the wall where Bailey pinched to keep it in the zone. John Tavares went into full beast mode and picked up the loose puck, stick handled in tight quarters and put a backhander past Enroth for a 2-0 lead. A couple of minutes later the Islanders pressed the play once again with some crisp passing from Bailey to Okposo to Tavares for his second goal of the game and his 15th goal of the year. The top line was on the ice for all three goals. Good to see them clicking for the first time in a long time. The Islanders doubled up the Sabres on shots 10-5 in the period and were in complete control of the game at that point.
Three goal lead with one period to play. Piece of cake...except when you are the Islanders you would almost want to have a one goal lead. With six minutes or so gone in the period, the game turned around in a five minute span. Deslauriers got Buffalo on the board with an innocent shot right in front of Poulin to ruin the shut out. Then a couple of minutes later the Islanders went on the power play, after a Buffalo goalie interference penalty, looking to get their three goal lead back. However a long pass from Deslauriers found Girgensons on a breakaway (glad I did not have to pronounce those two names) and he buried the shorty past Poulin to cut the lead to 2-1. Less than a minute later, after the Islanders failed on another power play, Stewart got by the defense and swung in on Poulin to tie the game. Not sure about the first two goals, but the tying goal that Poulin let in was very weak. It turned out that Poulin might have been the fraud in this game after all The Islanders ended up out shooting the Sabres 14-6 in the third period and 36-26 for the game. However, the telling stat was in the rugby scrums. The Isles were horrible and ended up losing 64% of all face-offs throughout the game.
Five minutes and three shots is all it took to ruin the game for the Islanders. It was the third time in the past couple of weeks that the Islanders gave up a three goal lead. Interesting fact is that in those three games there was a different goaltender in each game (Halak, Johnson and now Poulin). Not sure what is causing the breakdowns late in the game. When the game is close in the third period the Islanders seem to play much better, but when they have a multiple goal lead they stop playing for some reason. The frustrating thing is that there does not seem to be an apparent reason. It is not just the defense or goalie. It is a combination of both at times.
In the overtime both teams had chances but it eventually went to the skills competition. New York came into the game winners of their last nine overtime games (six of which were shootouts) and eleven in a row if you go back to last year. You knew that at some point they were going to lose one. Tonight was the night. It was a bad sign when Frans Nielsen missed his "backhand of judgement" and Tavares over stick handled his approach in front of Enroth. All the Sabres needed was a goal from Ennis and they were able to get two points out of thin air. The Islanders got a point, but it really felt like they lost a point in this game.
This was a very disappointing loss. The Islanders were the better team for 55 minutes. It goes to show you that you need to play 60 complete minutes in this league because any team can come back if they have the talent. As far as forwards go, the top line was strong. Bailey seems to have found a home there on the wing. However, the other three lines were very quiet. On the second line Mikhail Grabovski continues to be a no show every night. The effort is there, but there is no production. He got his wish to play with his buddy Nickolay Kulemin and he has not taken advantage. Frans Nielsen has struggled, but that might be more of a function of who he is playing with right now. The third line did not do anything special this evening. Barely heard the names Nelson or Lee for the entire game. The fourth line agitated a bit but did not produce anything of substance.
After their second loss in a row, the Islanders fell to 23-11-1 and have a total of 47 points. They remain in second place in the Metropolitan Division. Next up is a home game against the Washington Capitals on Monday and a road game on New Year's Eve against the Winnipeg Jets. They are still right there, but it is apparent that they need a healthy Jaroslav Halak until they find a capable back-up that they can have confidence in. If you had to sum up the amount of confidence that the team has in their back-up goaltenders right now well there is only one thing that can be said...Its not Halak.
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