Friday, February 08, 2013

The Skinny: Rangers 4, Isles 1


"The Skinny"

 By Eric Hornick
Game 10
Rangers 4, Isles 1
JT Miller scored his first two career goals and Henrik Lundqvist made 27 saves as the New York Rangers handed the Islanders their third straight loss, defeating the Islanders 4-1 before a sellout crowd of 17,200 at Madison Square Garden.

The Scoring:
1st Period
01:29 NYR J. Miller (1) Snap - ASST: C. Kreider (1) AND M. Staal (4) 1 - 0 NYR
14:04 NYR M. Gaborik (6) Wrist - ASST: M. Staal (5) AND B. Richards (7) 2 - 0 NYR
2nd Period
11:13 NYI J. Tavares (5) Snap - ASST: M. Moulson (6) AND J. Finley (1) 2 - 1 NYR
18:11 NYR PPG - J. Miller (2) Snap - ASST: R. McDonagh (1) 3 - 1 NYR
3rd Period
17:52 NYR EN - R. McDonagh (1) Wrist - ASST: NONE   4 - 1 NYR
The Skinny:  The Rangers have won eight straight over the Islanders at Madison Square Garden for the first time in the long rivalry between the teams, outscoring the Isles 35-11; the Isles' 8-game winless streak at MSG matches the club mark set in the team's first eight visits to Manhattan… Miller became the first Ranger since Don Murdoch (1976 Chris Kontos (a 6-2 win against Detroit on Jan. 3, 1983) to score two goals in his first game on Garden ice. … The Isles went 0-5 on the power play, dropping to 0-19 over the last three games; it's the first time since October 17-22, 2002 (also 19 times) that the Isles have failed on at least 19 power plays in three consecutive games without scoring a power play goal… Joe Finley recorded his first NHL point; Chris Kreider recorded his first regular season assist. … John Tavares tied Michael Grabner for the team lead in goals (5).  It was his 214th career point, breaking a tie with Jean Potvin and Garry Howatt and allowing him to match Mark Parrish for 31st place on the all-time club point list… The Rangers had scored only four goals in the first period of their first nine games.

The Shots:
Isles          8-9-11=28
Rangers    10-8-7=25
Home and Road
The Islanders are 4-5-1 overall, 1-3-0 at home and 3-2-1 on the road.  It's the first time since the Isles lost the season opener that they fell under .500.
The Rangers are 5-5-0 overall, 4-2-0 at home and 1-3-0 on the road. 

In the Nets
Evgeni Nabokov made 21 saves but falls to 4-4-1 on the season.  Nabokov is now 6-7-1 in his career against the Rangers.
Henrik Lundqvist made 27 saves as he improves to 4-5-0 on the season and 25-11-5 against the Islanders.

Power Plays
The Isles went 0-5 on the power play while the Rangers were 1-2.  The Isles have allowed a power play goal in each of their last three games.

They Said It
Evgeni Nabokov: "It seems like sometimes we are satisfied to be in close games, but there's enough talent in here to work hard and win games.  We need to start better, and that starts with me and it goes along the line with everybody. That's the bottom line."

They Tweeted It
@JesseSpector: Rick Nash has a potential goal wiped out because the whistle blew. For once, may have been the right call. Looked like Nabokov had control.

The Coach
"We bailed on a few plays along the wall--nothing bothers me more than that"

Head of the Class
John Tavares has 214 career points; he is 55 points ahead of Matt Duchene for most among 2009 draft picks.  No other player in that draft is anywhere close.  Tavares also has more goals and more assists than any other player in that draft.

Friends, Friends, Friends
Matt Moulson has four goals this season; John Tavares has earned an assist on two of them.  Tavares has now been on-ice for 64 consecutive Moulson goals, earning assists on 42 of them, dating back to a Moulson goal on November 17, 2010 against Tampa. 

107 NHL Goals
Moulson has 107 career goals (101 as an Islander).  While 262 players were selected before the Penguins chose Moulson in the 2003 entry draft, only 17 have more goals.

Road Warrior
All four of Matt Moulson's goals this season have come on the road. Scoring on the road is nothing new for Moulson; 23 of his 36 goals last season also came on the road.  Only Steven Stamkos (24) had more.

Leading Ice Men
Marc Streit led the Isles with 25:51.  Anton Stralman led the Rangers with 26:41 (one second less than his career high, set last March 2nd in Tampa).

In the Circle
The Islanders won 23 draws; the Rangers won 25.  Frans Nielsen won 4 of 7 for the Isles; Derek Stepan won 12 of 20 for the Rangers.

Heavy Hitters
The Islanders were out-hit 34-23; Colin McDonald led the Isles with seven hits.  There were no fights, leaving the season total at six.

All-time Winners
The Islanders fall to one games over all-time NHL .500 (1351-1350-433 in 3,134 games).  The Isles twice last season fell one game below .500. Prior to that, they had not been below NHL .500 since they were 177-178-83 prior to their victory on January 16, 1978.

4 is a Magic Number
The Isles are 4-0-1 when scoring at least four goals and 0-5-0 when scoring two or less.  (The Isles have not scored exactly three goals in any game so far this season.)

Local Yokels
The Isles are in the midst of a stretch in which they will play nine consecutive games in the New York area (six at home, two at MSG, and one in New Jersey).  The Isles are 1-3-0 so far in this stretch, with one game at MSG, and home games against Buffalo, Carolina, New Jersey and Philadelphia remaining.

Ironmen
Matt Moulson, the Isles' reigning ironman, has played in all 256 games since joining the team.  Moulson's streak is the longest for an Islander in the Post-Cup era and the 4th longest in club history.  Billy Harris played in the first 576 games in Islander history; that figure still stands as the club record.

Three other Islanders, Frans Nielsen, John Tavares and Mark Streit, also played in every game last season.  Tavares extended his streak to 169 consecutive games, while Nielsen and Streit have each played in 92.

Longest Consecutive Game Streaks, Islander History 
1. Billy Harris 576 
2. Bob Nystrom 301
3. Denis Potvin 262
4. Matt Moulson 256
Missing Men
Lubomir Visnovsky passed his physical, was added to the active roster, but was scratched as was Casey Cizikas and Matt Carkner; Radek Martinek is on injured reserve. Josh Bailey and Jesse Joensuu remain suspended after suffering injuries in Europe; however Bailey is skating with the team.

List Time
Career Wins, Active Goalies
Career Wins
21. Sean Burke 324
23. Miikka Kiprusoff 313
Career Goals as an Islander
22
Benoit Hogue
105
22
Ed Westfall
105
24
Matt Moulson
101
24
Anders Kallur
101
26
Trent Hunter
99






32
Travis Green
92
33
John Tavares
89
34
Butch Goring
87



Career Assists as an Islander – active players
1
John Tavares
125
2
Frans Nielsen
121
3
Mark Streit
120
4
Kyle Okposo
  95













Career Games as an Islander (skaters)
48
Shawn Bates
330
49
Frans Nielsen
329
50
Eric Cairns
327
51
Alan Kerr
326



59
Arron Asham
300
59
Roman Hamrlik
300
61
Josh Bailey
292
62
Gord Dineen
287
63
Jeff Norton
282
64
Kyle Okposo
281
65
Steve Thomas
275



70
Matt Moulson
256
71
Pierre Turgeon
255
72
John Tavares
253
73
Jude Drouin
250
74
Mark Streit
248
75
Brad Isbister
247
75
Brendan Witt
247
77
Sean Bergenheim
246



Career Points as an Islander
31
Mark Parrish
214
31
John Tavares
214
33
Jean Potvin
213
33
Garry Howatt
213
35
Anders Kallur
211
36
Marty McInnis
198



40
Lorne Henning
184
41
Matt Moulson
180
42
Frans Nielsen
175
43
Randy Wood
172
44
Claude Lapointe
171
44
JP Parise
171
46
Shawn Bates
170
47
Jude Drouin
169
48
Dave Scatchard
168
49
Miroslav Satan
166
50
Kyle Okposo
165
51
Oleg Kvasha
158
52
Mark Streit
156
53
Alan Kerr
154

Season Series Stats
The Rangers lead the season series one game to 0 (2 points to zero).  The teams will meet again on February 14 at the Garden and March 7 and April 13 at the Coliseum.

Happy Anniversary
1 year ago today (2-7-12):  The Islanders didn't score, but they still won, as Evgeni Nabokov made 45 saves and the Islanders defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 1-0 in a shootout.
All-time, the Isles are 7-9-3 on this date, although they have lost three of the last four.
On The Farm
Bridgeport is 20-19-2-3.  The Sound Tigers will host Portland on Saturday night and Worcester in Sunday afternoon.

Up Next
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9th BUFFALO AT ISLANDERS (7:00PM)
[MSG+ (Pre-game show at 6:30PM), WRHU (88.7FM)]
The Islanders and Sabres meet for the first of three times this season at the Coliseum on Saturday night. 
The Sabres won the season series 2 games to 1 (and four points to three) last season.  Each team won once in regulation and the Sabres also defeated the Isles in a shootout.

And Finally…
With bad weather headed our way, you might be interested to know that the last Islander game postponed due to weather was on March 13, 1993 when snow prevented the Isles from hosting the Pittsburgh Penguins.  That game was played the next day, which was the day the Rangers' JT Miller was born.  (The storm caused the rescheduling of several other Islander games as well.)

Eric Hornick has been the statistician on Islander home game telecasts since 1982. Information contained in "The Skinny" has been gathered from various sources.  Follow Eric @ehornick on Twitter.
Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since January 21, 1982. Visit my blog: NYISkinny.com and follow me on Twitter @ehornick

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