Isles/Rangers/Devils

Former Ranger, former Devil goalie Mike Dunham signs with Islanders. He joins these players who have completed the New York-area hat trick: Joel Bouchard, Pat Conacher, Vladimir Malakhov, Sergei Nemchinov, John Vanbiesbrouck.

[from Mark Herrmann]

Offensive offense

The Isles have scored only two goals in their last four games. That ties the club record for fewest goals in a four-game stretch. The record was set in 1972-73: 2-Jan-73 Vs Atlanta 1 6 L 3-Jan-73 @ Buffalo 1 4 L 6-Jan-73 Vs Detroit 0 4 L 7-Jan-73 @ Detroit 0 4 L

and tied -- twice -- in 2003-04: 22-Nov-03 @ Columbus 1 2 L 26-Nov-03 Vs Carolina 0 2 L 28-Nov-03 @ Detroit 0 6 L 29-Nov-03 Vs Philadelphia 1 5 L

26-Nov-03 Vs Carolina 0 2 L 28-Nov-03 @ Detroit 0 6 L 29-Nov-03 Vs Philadelphia 1 5 L 2-Dec-03 Vs Washington1 4 L

The Isles also equalled the club record for fewest goals scored in three consecutive games, all played at home (2): 27-Feb-01 Vs New Jersey 1 4 L 1-Mar-01 Vs Carolina 1 3 L 3-Mar-01 Vs Tampa Bay 0 6 L

Those were the final three games coached by Butch Goring.

Get out the history books

The Isles finish the season 6-1-1 against New Jersey. It's the first time since 1983-84 [7-0-0] that the Isles have won at least six games from New Jersey. The Isles were 3-0-1 at the Meadowlands. It's the first time since 1992-93 that they've won three games in a season in New Jersey and the first since since 1982-83 that they've picked up points in four games in New Jersey. The Isles have beaten Marty Brodeur four straight times; prior to this streak they had never beaten the perennial all-star three straight times. Brad Shaw is the only Islander coach besides Al Arbour to ever win four straight against the Devils franchise. Marty Brodeur has allowed twelve goals in his last two games and was pulled from both. He had never allowed more than ten goals in consecutive games and was last pulled in consecutive games on Dec 31/96 - Jan 2/97. Rick DiPietro has won six straight games - a career high. Di Pietro has won seven straight starts [he was charged with the loss in relief against Montreal], and is 11-1-1 in his last 13 starts. The Isles are 6-1 in their last seven games. The Isles have won four straight games, and have allowed only one goal in each. If the Isles can hold Atlanta to one goal or less on Thursday, they will tie a club record of allowing one goal or fewer in five straight games. The record was set early in the 1974-75 season. At 31-29-4, the Isles are two games over NHL .500 -- one game shy of their season best [15-12-2, 16-13-2, 17-14-2] done three times. The Isles are now .500 on the road 15-15-2, for 32 points. Other than the 2001-02 season, when they had 37 points in 32 games, they haven't had more than 32 points in their first 32 road games since they had 34 in 32 games when they were still defending the Stanley Cup in 1983-84. [Of course, there are more points per game available this season than ever before.]

Penalty Shots

Some things you might not have known...

Martin Straka's goal is the first-ever penalty shot goal in an Islander-Ranger game. There were three previous failures:

Don Murdoch on Chico Resch 1/28/78 Randy Wood on Mike Richter 4/5/90 [playoffs] Claude Lapointe on Mike Richter 10/25/98

[There has never been a penalty shot goal in an Islander-Devil game.]

Straka is now 3/8 on his career in penalty shots [3/7 in regular season and 0/1 in playoffs]

DiPietro had stopped four previous penalty shots: Stopped Michael Nylander [WSH], December 21, 2002 Stopped Erik Cole [CAR], April 2, 2004 Stopped Patrik Stefan [ATL], October 25, 2005 Stopped Dany Heatley [OTT], November 5, 2005

It's the first time in Islander history that they've allowed two penalty shot goals in one season [Vincent Lecavalier scored on January 2nd].

DiPietro has now faced five penalty shots, tying the club record set by Kelly Hrudey. [Resch, Smith and Snow have each faced four in regular season play]

The Isles have allowed five penalty shots this season, which is a new club record. The previous mark of four was set in the 1977-78 season. The Isles faced only three penalty shots in all of the 1990's [779 regular season games]

Leaguewide, there have been 28 penalty shot goals on 73 shots this season. Both are NHL records by wide margins. The shooters are getting more accurate too-- over the prior two seasons combined there were 27 goals on 96 shots. There were only 27 penalty shot goals throughout the league over the first eight seasons of Islander history.

Shaw now 5-3-1 as Isles coach

With Tuesday's win over Washington, Brad Shaw is now 5-3-1 behind the Isles bench and the team has not gone consecutive games without a point at any time during his tenure. Shaw is the only interim coach in Isles history to hold a winning record after nine games; the only other time any Islander coach held a winning record nine games into any tenure was when Peter Laviolette was 7-0-1-1 in his first nine games.

Record-setting night in Boston

Howie and Chris mentioned late in the game that the Islanders were closing in on a club record for shots on game --54, set in 1994 in Hartford and equaled in 2004 in Florida. While they fell short of that record, the Isles outshot Boston 51-44 for the game [including 21-19 in the third period]. The 95 combined shots is the most in any regular season game in Islander history. The record-setting shot was taken by future Hall-of-Famer Brian Leetch, who launched a 142 foot slap shot just before the final horn. The previous record, 94, was set on October 12, 1993 in Los Angeles. The Isles outshot the Kings 51-43, but fell 7-5 to the Kings in the final game of their 1-3-0 season-opening road trip. One player who scored in that game also scored in this one: Alexei Zhitnik.

Bad....but historical... and a 25th anniversary worth noting

The Isles have now been outscored 12-1 in their last 2 home games. The -11 goal differential is the second worst in club history. In March 2000, the Islanders lost consecutive home games by an 8-2 score to Pittsburgh and New Jersey -- the latter game was Larry Robinson's Devil debut. Despite winning his first game, the Isles have been outscored 15-5 in three home games under Brad Shaw. It's the fourteenth time in club history that the Isles have been outscored by at least ten goals in a three home-game span. [Several of the previous streaks were overlapping.] The club record over three home games is -14, also set in March 2000. By the way, eleven of those fourteen streaks have occurred in the last ten seasons; the other three all occurred under Phil Goyette in the first 21 home games of the club's history. The Isles were NEVER outscored by ten goals in a three home-game stretch under Al Arbour. They lost three games by a combined 14-5 in early 1989 -- home games 7-9 of Arbour's second tenure. Speaking of Arbour, he was behind the bench 25 years ago tonight -- when Mike Bossy scored goals 49 and 50 in his 50th game, to tie Rocket Richard's record. The event was mentioned on tonight's Islander telecast and radiocast, and the Devils telecast. Ron Grahame, whose son John will represent Team USA was the goaltender who game up the milestone goal; Isles defensemen Stefan Persson had five assists -- one short of the still-standing club record, which was set two weeks earlier by Bossy. Finally, a sad and fond farewell to Tim Moriarty, a Hall of Fame writer who among other works authored "The Incredible Islanders", which chronicled the 1975 team. Moriarty, who retired from Newsday nearly two decades ago, pased away today at the age of 82. Forever1940 is the nom de plume of FSN statistician Eric Hornick. Eric is now in his 25th year as the statistician on Islander home telecasts and has also worked the Stanley Cup Finals four times. Often referred to on-air as an actuary, he is one of 2,782 Fellows of the Casualty Actuarial Society and is the Vice President of the Casualty Actuaries of Greater NY. You can find him in the "Best Seat in the House", about six feet to Howie and Joe's left, at most Islander home games. For more on the actuarial profession, visit www.beanactuary.org