As Yoda would have probably said, "Two games left in the season, there were." Not sure where the Star Wars reference came from, but I will run with it. Hard to believe the season is finally coming to an end. For the Islanders it was a very good start, but it has been less than a stellar finish. The Islanders finally clinched a playoff spot on Thursday night when the Florida Panthers beat an over the hill Boston Bruins team.. Who would have thought that with 98 points and two games left in the season, that the playoffs would still be up in the air? It goes to show you that points earned in October are just as important as points earned in April.
The Islanders still had some work to do. They travelled to Pittsburgh on Friday to play a banged up Penguin team with a lot on the line. If the Islanders could win their final two games and if a miracle of all miracles happens on Saturday and a minor league New York Rangers squad, with nothing to play for, beats a tough Washington Capitals team, then the Islanders would clinch second place in the Metropolitan Division.
That would mean home ice advantage for the Islanders in the first round and bonus hockey at the Nassau Coliseum. Any other result and New York would start the playoffs on the road. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, was playing for their playoff lives with Boston and Ottawa breathing down their neck. They have struggled as of late and are banged up on the blue line. A streak of nine straight seasons of playoffs hung in the balance.
An interesting and exciting subtext to Friday's game was the race for the Art Ross trophy, which is given to the leading scorer in the league at the end of the season. John Tavares and Sidney Crosby came into the game tied with Jamie Benn of Dallas at 83 points with two games to play. The good news is Tavares holds the tie-breaker over Crosby due to the fact that he has scored more goals than Sidney. Friday's game in Pittsburgh may go a long way to deciding the eventual winner.
Matt Martin did not make the trip to Pittsburgh However, Frans Nielsen did. But both remained out with undisclosed injuries. Not sure why the injuries are not characterized as upper body or lower body. Maybe it is right on the line between the two and the team doctors cannot make the call. It is a bit concerning, because each has been out for a week and the playoffs start next week. Still no word on Mikhail Grabovski, who has been skating with the team for quite a while,. There was some good news on the injury front as Cal Clutterbuck returned to the lineup.
Pittsburgh came out of the locker room on fire. You could tell that they were a desperate team battling for their playoff lives. They threw almost every puck that they had in the Islanders zone on Jaroslav Halak. The Penguins got their first chance with a man advantage when Thomas Hickey went off for slashing. On the ensuing power play, the Penguins were cycling the puck behind Halak when Patrick Hornqvist tried to stuff a Clark Bar in the net. The puck seemed to cross the red line, however, it was hard to tell if it went in because Halak's glove masked the puck. After a lengthy review in the war room in Toronto, it was decided that it was inconclusive and that it was not a goal. It turned out to be the right call.
It was only eight seconds later, after a face-off in the Islanders zone, that Cal Clutterbuck fished out the puck from the corner, and launched a home run pass to Casey Czikas. He caught Mark-Andre Fleury off guard with a quick wrist shot to make it 1–0. It was a shorthanded goal and Czikas' 9th goal of the year. Talk about a turn of events. The Penguins and their fans were stunned. Pittsburgh tried to turn it up a notch and tried to get on the board, but Halak was solid stopping 17 shots in the first 20 minutes. The Islanders only had five shots of their own on net, but the important thing is that one of them counted to give them gave them the lead.
The second period consisted of a lot of end to end action. Pittsburgh got another power-play opportunity when Eric Bolton interfered with a Penguin as he was exiting the ice. The Islanders almost got a another shorty when Thomas Hickey started a two on one break with Michael Grabner. Hickey kept the puck and tried to beat the goaltender by himself, but a Fleury made a fantastic stop.
The Islanders almost escaped. the period with the lead, however, Rob Scuderi got a juicy rebound and put it in an open net to tie the game at 1-1 with only Heinz 5.7 seconds left. The evil Sidney Crosby got the assist to temporarily take over the scoring lead. It was the second game in a row that Halak gave up a very late goal But he really did not have any chance on that one. Through two periods the Penguins had the lead and shots 28–13.
Normally when teams score goals late in the period, the momentum carries over to the next period. In this game, it was not the case. Just three minutes into the third period, Kyle Okposo dug the puck out of the corner, spun and passed the puck to Brian Strait at the blue line. Strait slapped one towards the net and Fluery made a kick save right to the stick of John Tavares who had a wide open net to give the Islanders the lead back at 2-1. It was the Captain's 37th goal of the year and once again tied him with Crosby in the Art Ross race.
The Penguins were very tired and had no jump the rest of the way. Playing with only five defensemen for a number of games will do that to you. It really showed late in the period, when after a face-off Michael Grabner skated past the entire Penguins team and wristed a shot past Fluery to win the game 3-1. It was Grabner's 8th goal of the year from Bailey. That was the type of play that the coaches will notice and hopefully get Grabner some more playing time next week.
So Saturday should be interesting. The Rags need to win to make the last game in the Nassau Coliseum meaningful. If the Capitals get any sort of point then the game on Long Island will simply be an exhibition. That will wrap the season and then the Islanders will be able to dream of the Stanley Cup for a couple of days before the tournament starts on Wednesday.
Overall, it was a great effort by the Islanders against a desperate team. The Islanders were out shot for the game 38-26 and most likely out-chanced as well, but in the end they wore the Penguins down. It was clear that the Islanders were the better team.
I guess with Tavares and Crosby going head to head it certainly was star wars of some sort. The Captain got the winning goal and took over the scoring lead. As a fan you could not ask for anything more.. Tavares was certainly the better player this evening or as Yoda would say, "Certainly the better player this evening, Tavares was."
No comments:
Post a Comment