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The Skinny: Isles 5, Chicago 4

"The Skinny"  By Eric Hornick Game 31 Isles 5, Chicago 4 Simon Holmstrom scored a goal and added two assists, while Jean-Gabriel P...

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Party like it's 1998?

...with apologies to Prince  :) 

The Isles' play these past 11 games is somewhat reminiscent to the 1997-98 season. The Isles started April 1998 with a 24-38-10 record and proceeded to dominate last placeTampa (mainly) for most of the month, going 6-3-1 in April, and finishing the season 30-41-11:

1-Apr-98 Vs Tampa Bay 4 0 W
4-Apr-98 Vs New York 3 0 W
6-Apr-98 @ Tampa Bay 3 0 W
8-Apr-98 Vs New Jersey 3 2 W
9-Apr-98 @ Boston 1 4 L
11-Apr-98 @ Montreal 3 3 T
13-Apr-98 Vs Washington 0 2 L
15-Apr-98 @ New York 2 4 L
16-Apr-98 Vs Tampa Bay 4 0 W
18-Apr-98 @ New Jersey 2 1 W

In addition to making Eddie Westfall's final days in the Isles TV booth just a bit more pleasurable, the Isles jumped over several teams in the standings and finished 19th in a then 26-team league.  The Isles ended up with the 9th pick that spring (expansion Nashville picked 2nd) and selected Mike Rupp, who never signed with them.  While this was not a particularly deep draft anyhow (Lecavalier and Legwand went 1-2, Tanguay, Gagne and Gomez were all on the board after Rupp), had the Isles not had such a strong finish they might have ended up with the 4th or 5th pick, instead of the 9th.

The Isles are 7-3-1 in their last 11 and are within two games of NHL .500 for the first time since January 31st.  Hmmm.


 Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since 1982. Visit my blog: forever1940.blogspot.com and follow me on Twitter @ehornick

1 comment:

TheMetalChick said...

Honestly- how is finishing the season 30-41-11 anything like right now?