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Wednesday, April 02, 2014

The Skinny: Isles 2, Ottawa 1

"The Skinny"  

 By Eric Hornick
 
Game 76
Isles 2, Ottawa 1
Josh Bailey scored a first period goal and then assisted on Casey Cizikas' winning goal as the Islanders defeated the Ottawa Senators 2-1 before a crowd of 16,516 at the Canadian Tire Centre.  The Isles have a season-high six-game point streak (5-0-1).  It's the first time since March 27-29, 2012 (both vs. Pittsburgh) that Bailey has had consecutive multi-point games.

The Scoring:
1st Period
17:09 NYI PPG - Josh Bailey (8) Snap shot - ASST: Ryan Strome (10), Matt Donovan (11)  1 - 0 NYI        
 
2nd Period
NONE
 
3rd Period
06:41 OTT PPG - Milan Michalek (17) Wrist shot - ASST: Chris Neil (5), Patrick Wiercioch (17) 1 - 1 Tie      
09:31 NYI PPG - Casey Cizikas (6) Wrist shot - ASST: Josh Bailey (25), Ryan Strome (11) 2 - 1 NYI

The Skinny:  
Josh Bailey played in his 400th NHL game; he has consecutive multi-point games and is 10-9-19 in 34 career April games.  Bailey also extended his career-best assist total to 25…Casey Cizikas' goal was his first in 34 games (1/2/14 vs. Chicago) and his first career power play goal…Playing without John Tavares, the Isles are 9-5-2 since the Olympic break…The Senators' power play goal was only their 15th at home all season…The Isles improve to 14-6-6 when leading after two periods…. In his last five games Ryan Strome is 1-5-6; both of the multi-point games in his career have come in this stretch…. The Isles improve to 18-9-4 with Strome in the lineup…The Isles allowed a tying goal in the third period for the 22nd game this season (8-6-8)…The loss broke a five game point streak for Ottawa (4-0-1).

The Shots:
Isles       14-6-7=27        
Ottawa    13-7-16=36
 
The Young Get Younger
The Isles dressed ten rookies for the fourth straight game: Kevin Czuczman, Calvin de Haan, Matt Donovan, Mike Halmo, Anders Lee, Brock Nelson, Anders Nilsson, Ryan Strome, Johan Sundstrom, and John Persson. 
The average age of the 20 players the Isles dressed tonight was 25.33 years.  If you exclude the goaltenders, the average age drops to 24.66 years.  Matt Carkner was the only Islander over 30 (he is 33 ½).  None of the other Isles have turned 30 (Frans Nielsen will do so later this month).

Home and Road
The Islanders are 31-35-10 overall, 13-18-8 at home (including 0-1-0 at Yankee Stadium) and 18-17-2 on the road. The Isles are 7-2-1 in their last 10 games.
Over the last two seasons, the Isles are 23-29-11 (57 points in 63 games) at home and 32-23-6 (70 points in 60 games) on the road.
Ottawa is 32-30-14 overall; they are 16-16-6 at home and 16-14-8 on the road.

By Division
The Isles are 9-15-3 in Division games and are 22-20-7 in games against other divisions. They are 11-6-4 vs. the Atlantic Division, 7-6-1 vs. Central Division, and 4-8-2 vs. the Pacific Division.
The Isles do not have a winning record against every division opponent. They are 1-3-0 against Carolina, 1-1-1 (with one to play) against Columbus, 2-2-0 (with one to play) against New Jersey, 2-3-0 against New York, 1-3-0 against Philadelphia, 1-2-1 against Pittsburgh., and 1-1-1 against Washington (with one to play).
This was the sixth of 12 consecutive games against Eastern Conference opponents to end the regular season.  The Isles have started this stretch 5-0-1.

In the Nets
Anders Nilsson made 35 saves as he improves to 6-5-2 on the season.
Craig Anderson made 25 saves for Ottawa but falls to 23-15-8 on the season.

Power Plays
The Islanders were 2-4 on the power play while Ottawa was 1-5. 
The Isles are 18-8-4 when they score at least one power play goal and 13-27-6 when they do not.  The Isles are 14-19-4 when they allow at least one power play goal and 17-16-6 when they do not. 
The Isles are 12-91 in the last 24 games on the power play and have allowed 14 power play goals in 60 times short over the last 15 games.   

Feast or Famine
The Isles PP went 10-33 in the first 10 games, before going 7-79 in the next 24 games. They rebounded to go 11-32 in the following 11 games but are only 16-116 in their last 31 games.

Three is a Magic Number
The Isles are 25-10-3 when they score at least three goals (including shootout winners) and are 6-25-7 when they do not. 

Comeback Kids
The Isles are 15-9-7 when they score first and are 16-26-3 when they allow the opening goal.  The Isles have allowed the first goal in 26 of their last 38 games.

Second to The One
Jack Capuano became the 2nd coach in Islander history to win 100 games in Toronto on January 7th and became the 2nd coach in Islander history to coach 250 games on January 27th against Boston. He is 2nd on the all-time Islander list in both games coached (271) and wins (115).

Most games coached (Islanders):
1.     Al Arbour 1,500
2.     Jack Capuano 271
3.     Mike Milbury 191
4.     Terry Simpson 187
5.     Scott Gordon 181
 
Most wins by Islander coaches:
1.     Al Arbour 740
2.     Jack Capuano 115
3.     Terry Simpson 81
4.     Peter Laviolette 77
5.     Ted Nolan 74
 
They Said It
Josh Bailey: "It always feels good to get on the scoresheet.  (Our recent performance) shows that there has been no quit.  They were a desperate team (but we got) great goaltending."

They Tweeted It
@islesfansunite
I
I BELIEVE
I BELIEVE THAT
I BELIEVE THAT WE
I BELIEVE THAT WE JUST WON!!!!!
 
@7thWoman  Oh and -- @RealJiggsMcD still the #isles lucky charm!
@batteryjackson wow #isles rookies. holdin it down. next year may be a good one...I hope

The Coach
"After the first, again, we settled down.  I thought (Anders Nilsson) did a great job …made some huge saves for us."

Back-to-Backs
The Isles are now 7-8-1 in the front-end and 7-7-2 on the back end of back-to-backs this season.  The Isles have swept four back-to-backs:  November 1st/2nd vs. Ottawa and Boston, January 6th/7th vs. Dallas and Toronto, January 20th/21st vs. Philadelphia and the Rangers and April 1st/2nd vs. Florida and Ottawa.
In the 16 previous sets of back-to-backs, they have earned 4 points four times, 3 points once, 2 points five times, 1 point twice and no points on four occasions. 
The Isles next two games will also be in a back to back set as they host Washington on Saturday and visit Columbus on
Sunday. In all, six of the Isles' final eight games are being played as part of three back-to-back sets.

Leading Ice Men
Travis Hamonic led the Isles with 26:13 of ice-time while Erik Karlsson led Ottawa with 26:47.
The Isles are 15-17-6 when MacDonald leads in ice-time, are 15-13-4 when Hamonic leads, are 1-0-0 when deHaan leads, are 0-1-0 when Okposo leads, are 0-1-0 when Strait leads, are 0-2-0 when Tavares leads and are 0-1-0 when Vanek leads.

In the Circle
The Islanders won 19 of 53 draws (36%). No Islander center won at least one-half of their draws; Mika Zibanejad won 10 of 12 for Ottawa.

Heavy Hitters
The Isles out-hit Ottawa 24-21.  Matt Martin led the Isles with six hits while Cal Clutterbuck was one of three Isles with three hits. Martin now has 333 hits on the season and leads the NHL in hits by a wide margin; it is the second time in his career that he has recorded 300 hits. Clutterbuck now has 254 hits this season and is now in the top 5 in hits.
There were no fights in the game. The Isles have received 32 fighting penalties this season: Martin (10), Boulton (8), Carkner (8), McDonald (2), Hamonic (2), Halmo (1) and Okposo (1).

Giving Up the Body
The Isles were credited with 25 blocked shots, including a team-high five blocks for Frans Nielsen.

All-time Winners
The Islanders go five games over all-time NHL .500 (1402-1397-449 in 3,248 games) with five games remaining in the current regular season. The Isles have been 1-under all-time .500 after six games this season and have gone 4-0-2 in the following game. 
The Isles have finished every season since 1977-78 above all-time NHL .500 and have not been more than 1 game under NHL-.500 since January 11, 1978.
With their win tonight, the Isles are guaranteed to finish the regular season at least at all-time NHL .500.

Ironman
Thomas Hickey is the Islanders' reigning ironman.  He has played 77 consecutive regular season games, and is the only Islander to have played in every game this season. 

Missing Men
John Tavares is on injured reserve. Michael Grabner (concussion), Eric Boulton (hand), Brian Strait (broken hand), and Lubomir Visnovsky (upper body injury) are also injured. Kyle Okposo missed his fourth straight game with a lower body injury. Radek Martinek was scratched.
The Isles have lost 207 games this season due to injury. 

Career Wins, Active Goalies
 
Career Wins
17. Rogie Vachon 355
19. Gump Worsley 335
20. Nikolai Khabibulin 333
 
Career Shutouts, Active Goalies
 
4. Tomas Vokoun 51
5. Henrik Lundqvist 50
 
Career Shutouts
 
16 Turk Broda 62
17 John Ross Roach 58
17 Evgeni Nabokov 58
19 Clint Benedict       57

Career Goals as an Islander
15         Mariusz Czerkawski       145
16         John Tavares   136
17         Jason Blake      127
 
27         Trent Hunter      99
28         Kyle Okposo    99
29         Mikko Makela    95
29         David Volek      95
31         Randy Wood     94
32         Greg Gilbert      93
32         Garry Howatt     93
34         Travis Green      92
35         Butch Goring     87
36         Tomas Jonsson            84
37         Frans Nielsen   83
38         Michael Grabner 82
39         Wayne Merrick  81
39         Dave Scatchard            81
 
Career Assists as an Islander
16         Ed Westfall       181
17         John Tavares   179
18         Kenny Jonsson 175
19         Alexei Yashin    171
20         Duane Sutter     171
21         Jean Potvin       167
22         Jeff Norton       166
23         Frans Nielsen   165
24         Zigmund Palffy 163
25         Kyle Okposo    155      
26         David Volek      154
           
Career Games as an Islander (skaters)
24         Eddie Westfall  493
25         Radek Martinek 479
26         Gerry Hart         476
                       
29         Scott Lachance 450
30         Frans Nielsen   441
31         Jason Blake      426
 
34         Wayne Merrick  411
35         Jean Potvin       402
36         Josh Bailey      400
37         David Volek      396
38         Bert Marshall     392
39         Kyle Okposo    390
40         Travis Green      388
41         Anders Kallur    383
42         Randy Wood     381
43         John Tavares   350
44         Dave Scatchard            347
 
Career Points as an Islander
16         Ziggy Palffy      331
17         John Tavares   315
18         Mariusz Czerkawski       295
                       
22         Jason Blake      258
22         Steve Thomas   258
24         Kyle Okposo    254
25         David Volek      249
26         Frans Nielsen   248
27         Ray Ferraro       238
 
Season Series Stats
The Isles lead the season series, 2 games to 0(and four points to one), sweeping both games this season in Ottawa.
The Islanders have won three out of the last four against Ottawa but this was their first regulation win over Ottawa in the last 10 games between the squads.
The season series concludes on Tuesday in the Isles' home finale.

Happy Anniversary
21 years ago tonight (4-2-93):  Pierre Turgeon scored his 50th goal of the season as the Islanders defeated the Rangers 3-2 at Madison Square Garden.  Turgeon's historic tally came at 3:41 of overtime and stretched the Isles' lead over the Rangers to three points.  The Rangers would never recover and would miss the playoffs while the Isles would advance to the Conference Finals.
All-time, the Isles are 12-9-1 on this date.
On The Farm
Bridgeport visits Wilkes Barre/Scranton on Friday.  The Sound Tigers are 1-10-1-1 in their last 13 games and 27-34-2-5 on the season.

Up Next
SATURDAY, APRIL 5th – WASHINGTON AT ISLANDERS 5:00PM
[MSG-Plus (Isles Pre-game at 4:30), 88.7 WRHU-FM, 103.9 WRCN-FM]
The Isles return home to face Alex Ovechkin and the desperate Washington Capitals in a rare 5:00 start.
This will be the fourth and final meeting of the season between the teams; the Isles are 1-1-1 in the first three.  Washington exploded for five goals in a season-changing second period to defeat the Isles 6-2 on November 5th and then staged a daring comeback to defeat the Isles in overtime over Thanksgiving weekend before Evgeni Nabokov blanked the Caps in DC just before the Olympic break.
Note the early start time: 5:00PM.

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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