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The Skinny: Rangers 5, Isles 2

"The Skinny" By Eric Hornick Game 68 Rangers 5, Isles 2 Johnny Brodzinski broke a 2-2 tie with 4:59 left in the middle period and ...

Sunday, November 27, 2011

The Isles and All-time .500

The Islanders win on Saturday in New Jersey allowed them to regain all-time .500 approximately 22 hours after falling below it for the first time since 1978.

A couple of people asked me for the extremes -- when were they the most over, and the most under, .500 in their history.

Biggest negative:  71 under .500   Three times in 1973-74 (Arbour's first season) and again once in 1974-75. 

On December 28, 1974, a 3-1 loss to Toronto dropped the all-time record to 44-115-33, the final time that they would be 71 games under .500.

Biggest positive:  199 over .500     Twice in 1987-88 and once in 1988-89. 

The first time was on December 4, 1987, when a 6-4 win over Washington raised the season record to 17-7-1 and the all-time mark to 616-417-188. 
The Isles would get back to 199 over on March 31, 1988 (Denis Potvin's last home game) - a 7-3 win over the Caps raised the season record to 39-29-10 and the all-time mark to 638-439-197.  (Ironically a loss in the following game to the Devils would be a huge win that would help get the Devils into the playoffs for the first time.)
Early the following season (October 22, 1988), a 7-3 win over Quebec raised the season mark to 4-2-1 and the all-time mark to 642-443-198.

Since that win, the Isles are 677-876-227 to leave their all-time record at 1319-1319-425

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

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