The New York Islanders went to Ottawa to take on the Senators in the second game of a back-to-back. The Isles took the first game with a thrilling 3-2 win in overtime. Thursday night's game however, was a challenge for a number of reasons. First, the Senators were celebrating Daniel Alfredsson's retirement earlier in the day. He skated with the team and dropped the ceremonial puck to start the game. The crowd was loud and boisterous. Secondly the Islanders looked like the walking wounded. In addition to Boychuk and Visnovsky being on injured reserve, Travis Hamonic was out for this one as well with an upper body injury. Griffin Reinhardt was called up from Bridgeport to take his place. Lastly, Josh Bailey and Cal Clutterbuck were still banged up from the last game. That gave Cory Conacher another chance to crack the lineup and also allowed the speedy MIchael Grabner to make his season debut after missing the first 25 games after sports hernia surgery.
I landed in Paris a little after 1:00AM EST. I was on my way to Germany for a well needed vacation. Tomorrow I will be leaving Nuremberg on a cruise down the Rhine river. The game came and went while I was somewhere over Atlantic Ocean. The best I could do was a Twitter recap. After we touched down I scrolled through the tweets. Halak was in goal again against Anderson. The first period was scoreless. The teams traded goals in the second frame. Brock Nelson got his 12th goal of the season from Nielsen and Leddy. The kid leads the team in goals and he is only in his second full season. The Islanders doubled up the Senators on shot attempts 18-9 through two periods. In the third period, Casey Czikas did it again. Burying a shot to the right of Anderson after a neat pass from Thomas "Fish Oils" Hickey. It was Zeeker's 4th goal of the year. The Islanders finished the game with 25 shots to the Senators 21.
New York moved to 19-7 with 38 points and gained sole possession of first place of the Metropolitan Division with a Pittsburgh loss. In addition, they remained tied with Tampa Bay for tops in the entire NHL. What can I say about this team that has not already been said? They are gaining confidence and winning games even though they have a lot of injuries on defense and their top line is not scoring. Everyone is pitching in on every line. Also, it does not hurt when your goaltender is playing lights out. Halak won his 11th straight game to set a franchise record for most wins in a row by a goaltender. But indeed there still is something that can be said about this team: "Les Islanders sont pour de vrai"....The Islanders are for real!
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