Stat Trick: Pittsburgh 3, Isles 1

Chris Kunitz scored his first two goals of 2010 to lead the Penguins to a 3-1 win over the Isles at the Igloo in Pittsburgh.  On to the trick:

1. Kunitz, who returned to action on Sunday after missing 15 games with an abdominal tear, gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead just past the midway point of the second period.  Islander-killer Evgeny Malkin added a tally at 17:00 of the period to double the Penguins' advantage. Malkin, who had already assisted on Kunitz' goal to extend his point streak to 11 games, now has 14 goals and 20 assists in 26 career games against the Isles.

2. Frans Nielsen got the Islanders back in the game off a face-off play midway through the third period, but Kunitz added his second tally with 5:12 to play to seal matters.  Nielsen is the only Islander forward to score in the past three games.

3. The Isles out-shot the Penguins 38-28.  It was the most shots for the Islanders in a road game since launching 40 against Florida on November 14th.  Marc-Andre Fleury made 37 saves as he improves to 10-4-3 against the Isles in his career.

...a few more...

4.  The Isles have lost seven straight in Pittsburgh and are just 1-10 in their last 11 trips to the Steel City.  The Isles are 3-16-1 in divisional road games over the past two seasons, with all three wins at Madison Square Garden. 

5.  The Isles went 0-3 on the power play, including a 48 second 5-on-3.  The Isles, who allowed four power play goals in their last game in Pittsburgh, killed the only Penguin power play.

6.  The Isles have dropped six straight on the road, and have been outscored in those games 22-9.  They are 0-20 on the power play in that stretch.

7. Dwayne Roloson, who played his 499th NHL game, suffered his fourth straight loss.  It's the first time this season that's he's gone more than three games without a win.

8.  Scoring Slumps: Sean Bergenheim/John Tavares - 12 games, Trent Hunter/Richard Park - 10 games, Blake Comeau - 8 games, Kyle Okposo - 7 games

9.  With the Flyers defeating the Devils in the snow at the Rock tonight, the Isles are now seven points out of the playoffs ... and only seven points ahead of the last place (in the East) Maple Leafs.  Of course, one look across the ice can show the advantage a team can accrue by drafting top picks in consecutive years: Marc-Andre Fleury, Malkin, Sidney Crosby and Jordan Staal were selected by the Penguins with a top-2 pick in consecutive drafts from 2003-2006.  Both Fleury and Crosby were the top pick overall.

10. The Penguins lead the season series three games to one (and seven points to three).  The teams will meet twice in four days to end the regular season in April.

Up next:  The Isles return home to finish up the pre-Olympic schedule, hosting Tampa at 2pm Saturday and Ottawa at 5pm Sunday.  The Lightning have swept the first three games of the season series, including a 5-2 win in Tampa last week.

Leftovers from Tuesday's Stat Trick: (with thanks to Elias and Matt Borzello)

Matt Martin did something on Tuesday night that had never been done in his lifetime.  He became the first Islander since Rich Pilon to record two assists in his NHL debut.  Pilon had two assists against the Calgary Flames on October 6, 1988.  (Martin was born seven months later.)  Gary Suter scored for the Flames as part of a three-goal Calgary comeback; his nephew Ryan played against Martin on Tuesday.

All three Islander goals Tuesday were from defensemen as Freddy Meyer, Bruno Gervais and Mark Streit scored.  It is the first time since December 29, 2007 that three Islander defensemen have all scored in the same game. That night, Chris Campoli, Marc-Andre Bergeron and Andy Sutton all beat Martin Brodeur as the Isles defeated the Devils 5-2.
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

Matt Martin

Matt Martin made his NHL debut on Tuesday night.  He assisted on two of the Islander goals.  He had only one two assist gamein the minor leagues this season.  Martin's two assists for the Isles are one fewer than Jon Sim has recorded.
 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

Stat Trick: Isles 4, Nashville 3 (shoot-out)

Mark Streit scored a power play goal with just over 11 seconds to play to knot the game and John Tavares provided the deciding goal in the shoot-out as the Islanders defeated the Predators 4-3 at the Coliseum.  On to the trick:

1. Following a scoreless first period, the Isles did something they hadn't done in ten games: score first.  Freddy Meyer broke the seal 5:10 into the middle session.  The lead didn't last long as Cal O'Reilly and Joel Ward scored 3:16 apart to give Nashville the lead.  The Isles got even late in the period on a 5-on-3, with Bruno Gervais connecting for the second time this season.

2. Steve Sullivan's power play goal 4:12 into the third period to give the Predators a 3-2 advantage, but with Martin Biron on the bench in the final minute, Martin Erat was called for boarding.  Streit made Erat pay with the third goal of the game by an Islander defensemen to knot the contest.

3. In the shootout, Frans Nielsen connected on the first shot to give the Isles the lead.  After Sullivan and David Legwand failed for the Preds and Rob Schremp and Matt Moulson were stopped for the Isles, Martin Erat tied the shootout after round three,  John Tavares' wrist shot gave the Isles the lead in the shootout and when Biron stopped Patric Hornqvist, the Isles had broken their seven game losing streak.  Nielsen is now 10 for 17 in shootouts; he is the only active player in the entire NHL to have scored as many as ten shootout goals on fewer than twenty shots.

...a few more..

4.  Biron made 24 saves to break a personal 6-game losing streak and record his first win since November 13th and his first at the Coliseum since blanking Buffalo on ds.  Pekka Rinne finished with 29 saves for the Predators.

5. Despite their recent troubles, the Isles reach 56 points eleven games earlier than they did last season.  The Isles have only five fewer ppoints than they had all last season.

6.  All three Islander goals were by defensemen.  They had not had a goal by a defender since Jack Hillen scored on January 23rd against New Jersey.  It's the fofth time this season that they have had at least two goals from their defense but the first time that they have had three.

7. The Isles scored twice on the power play, ending an 0-24 drought.  It's the third time this season that the Isles have had two powerplayt goals in a game at the Coliseum.

8. The Isles did not score three goals in any of the seven games of their losing streak.  The three goals equaled thier total from the previous three games.

9.  The Isles now lead the NHL in home shootout wins with six.  They have also won six straight home shootouts since losing onto Pittsburgh on Opening Night and have won five straight shootouts overall.  The Isles improve to 7-5 in shootouts (and 12-8 in games that have taken extra time).  It's only the second time that the Isles have won five straight shootouts (seven straight, over two seasons, in 2006), and only the second time that the Isles have played at least 20 overtime games in a season (The club record is 22, set in the 2006/07 season).  The Isles' 12 OT/SO wins tie Montreal and Phoenix for the league lead; their 20 trips to overtime are tied with Boston for the most in the NHL.  The Isles are 32-21 all-time in shootouts, including 19-8 at the Coliseum.

10. This was the only meeting of the season between the teams.  This was the first Coliseum game between the teams since 2006; the Isles had not defeated the Predators on Long Island since 2002.  The Isles have had five different head coaches for the six games that they have hosted Nashville; only Butch Goring has coached more than once.

Up next:  The Isles have a speedy turn-around as they play Wednesday night in Pittsburgh.  It's the fourth meeting of the teams this season; each team hold an extra time win and the Penguins also hold a regulation victory against the Isles.  The Isles are 3-15-1 in divisional road games under Scott Gordon, however all three wins are at Madison Square Garden.  The Isles have lost six straight games in Pittsburgh.

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

Isles prospect Matt Donovan

The Isles are one of only a handful of teams to have played an NHL game in Donovan's home state.  On December 13, 1992, the Isles defeated Edmonton 4-1 in an Islander  "home game" played in Oklahoma City.

<<Steve Thomas and Tom Fitzgerald each scored two goals tonight and the Islanders beat Edmonton, 4-1, in the first regular-season National Hockey League game ever played in Oklahoma.  The game .. drew 11,110.>> nytimes

That win, fwiw, ended an Islander 11 game winless streak against Edmonton dating back to February 14, 1989  -- the day Brandon (don't call me SOO-ter) Sutter was born.

Read on for the Donovan story from today's Denver Post.

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Sooner Donovan's a boon to DU hockey
By Terry Frei
The Denver Post
Posted: 02/09/2010 01:00:00 AM MST
Updated: 02/09/2010 07:46:34 AM MST

Matt Donovan hears it every day, usually at a rink.

You're from WHERE?

Yes, the University of Denver freshman defenseman is from Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain; where football is king; and where — at least according to perception — hockey is to his native state what bobsledding is to Jamaica.

"I get it from everyone," Donovan said recently at Magness Arena. "Then it's something like, 'We didn't know Oklahoma had hockey.' Or, 'We didn't know Oklahoma had ice.' "

That makes his role in what happened Jan. 6 even more unlikely. After the U.S. knocked off Canada 6-5 in overtime in the title game of the World Junior (Under-20) Championships in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,

Donovan stood with his gold medal around his neck and heard the U.S. anthem.

Donovan, 19, and a 2008 draft choice of the NHL's New York Islanders, had three goals and two assists in seven tournament games. The American team included seven players from Western Collegiate Hockey Association teams who took breaks from their college seasons to play for their country — and shock the Canadians in the championship game.

"With 15,000 people screaming against us, it was pretty nuts," said Donovan, who is from Edmond, Okla. "I don't think you can describe the feeling of winning that."

Then Donovan returned to the college game.

"I was kind of excited to get back into the groove of things, to be back with my team," he said.

Going into DU's Friday and Saturday Western Collegiate Hockey Association home games against Minnesota, Donovan has four goals and 12 assists in 23 games while playing a prominent role on the blue line.

How Donovan ended up on the Hilltop is testimony to the geographic expansion of a sport on the participatory level in the U.S. His path is also an illustration of how significantly NCAA hockey recruiting has changed in the past two decades, with coaches looking at prospects

 Matt Donovan, who hails from Edmond, Okla., was a fourth-round draft selection of the New York Islanders in the 2008 NHL draft. He has four goals and 12 assists for the Pioneers this season. ( Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post )from "nontraditional" areas, and at younger players.

Donovan stands a chance of becoming the first NHL player born and raised in Oklahoma. His father, Larry Donovan, is a Boston native who came to Oklahoma for college — and stayed. He worked for the state of Oklahoma insurance department before getting into rink management full time.

"Matthew was about 3 when he started skating by himself," Larry Donovan said from Oklahoma City. "He wanted to be there all the time."

Ice time was at a premium in Oklahoma City, where minor-league hockey is deep- rooted, but participation at the youth level isn't.
"There were two rinks I grew up playing at," Matt said. "One is Arctic Edge, and they just put in a second ice sheet now. My dad's at Blazers Ice Center."

Matt also played baseball, football and golf.

"He was a really good athlete, but those other things were really something for him to do in the offseason," Larry Donovan said.

Larry coached the University of Oklahoma club team, but it wasn't long before he knew his son could play at a higher level.

The competition as he was climbing the youth hockey ladder, Matt said, "was not great, but good enough." He listed a handful of his contemporaries who have gone on to Tier I junior hockey, but it also was apparent that he would have to leave home to find a greater challenge.

Matt moved to Dallas — one of the nation's youth hockey hotbeds — to attend Coppell High School and play Midget AAA for the Dallas Stars.

"I had just turned 16, I had gotten my license, and my mom (Kathryn) definitely didn't want me to leave," Matt said. "But it was a no-brainer for me. I wanted to play college hockey and that was the way to go."

His father wasn't wild about the idea, either.

"I'm not going to lie to you," Larry Donovan said. "I didn't want him to leave, because once they leave, they leave, you know? It's hard to get them back."

Matt lived with "billet" parents, next door to the high school.

"I walked to the high school, walked back, went to practice, went home, ate dinner, did homework and went to sleep," Donovan said.

Then the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders of the United States Hockey League drafted him. The USHL is as close to major junior as players can get without losing their eligibility to play NCAA hockey. DU was already recruiting Donovan on a "futures" basis, with assistant coach Steve Miller as the point man. Donovan committed to the Pioneers before he ever played a game in the USHL.

DU coach George Gwozdecky said he raised his eyebrows a bit when he heard that the prospect was from Oklahoma.

"But we knew that with his dad's involvement in hockey, there were some bloodlines there," Gwozdecky said. "He was impacted by his dad's love for the game."

DU watched him in his final two years of high school and in the USHL — he graduated from Kennedy High in Cedar Rapids, Iowa — and his development validated the Pioneers' decision to commit a scholarship to him so early. And the Islanders took him in the fourth round of the NHL draft after his first season at Cedar Rapids.

As a freshman this season, he has stepped into a regular shift with the Pioneers.

"There's lots of growing up left to do," he said. "There are lots of things I have to work on to get to the next level. I know what I can do offensively, but defensively, I have to get stronger."

Said Gwozdecky: "He's getting better and better. He's getting more confident, like all our freshmen. It's a different role he has to play — a challenging role on defense, especially in our league where you're playing against guys who are so much bigger and stronger than you've seen. He's coming along real well."

Because of lowered threshold ages for free agency, NHL teams have been less patient about waiting for draft choices attending colleges in recent years, and the Islanders have been among the least patient. It seems unlikely that they would make a run at Donovan until after his junior season, but nothing can be ruled out.

"Right now, I'm expecting to be here four years, until someone tells me otherwise," Donovan said.

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_14361972#ixzz0f4IipMVU
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 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

LI Herald: Scaled dowm Lighthouse

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New zone to call for 'scaled-back' Lighthouse
Hired consultant to devise 'blueprint' for Nassau Coliseum property
By Mike Caputo

The Lighthouse plan as proposed by co-developers Charles Wang and Scott Rechler. On Monday, Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray will announce a plan to craft a new zone for the Nassau Coliseum property that will be a 'scaled-back' version of the original proposal.
A Hempstead Town Council vote on Tuesday would all but certify its intent to consider only a scaled-back version of the Lighthouse project.

Supervisor Kate Murray told the Herald she expects the seven-member board to approve legislation that would authorize the town to retain an engineering and planning firm to devise what she calls a "zoning blueprint" for the 77 acres surrounding the Nassau Coliseum.

The zone would act as a set of guidelines for the type and scope of permitted construction at the site.

The project, led by New York Islanders owner Charles Wang and real estate executive Scott Rechler, calls for the renovation of the Nassau Coliseum and the redevelopment of the property surrounding it with a mix of retail, business and residential usages.

The proposal submitted to the town includes a five-star hotel, a new convention center, sports and recreation center, a residential village, space for offices, retail and restaurants, a cinema and a canal.

The new zone would require Lighthouse developers to scale back their proposal, the supervisor explained.

"We will be paying [the consultant] to make a zone to create a development that we believe the board can live with, one we believe the residents can live with, and yet at the same time a project that would take in a number of the elements that Wang has proposed," Murray said. "It isn't going to be the same, but a scaled-down version."

The town will hire Frederick P. Clarke Associates, Murray said. Clarke was overseeing the town's environmental analysis of the proposal until shortly after the zoning hearing, which was when Murray says was about when the Lighthouse group stopped paying for the consultant's services.

According to town officials, the Lighthouse Development Group owes the firm about $200,000 for its services.

Murray also said the Lighthouse group has not answered questions that were submitted by the town board following the September zoning hearing. Some of the major questions included traffic mitigation, building heights and water usage.

The group has "shut their operations down and gone silent," Murray said. "The board understands that this piece of property is too important to be sort of lying in limbo and threatened with a development that goes down the drain."

"We want to jump start the process," the supervisor added.

Follow the first period of a home game between the Islanders and the Carolina Hurricanes, Wang told MSG Network announcer Howie Rose that his group awaits a "yes" or "no" answer from the town.

He did not elaborate or provide further comment. A Lighthouse representative did not return a request for comment.

Wang and his group have not addressed the media on the project since Oct. 15, when the Islanders owner denied a published report that claimed he withdrew the project.

On Oct. 3, Wang told the media that he would "explore all options," which could include a possible relocation of the franchise.

Murray said she would announce the town's plan at a Monday morning press conference.

Visit LIHerald.com for updates on this story.
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 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

Huge discount on Isles tix for Tuesday game

http://www.ticketmaster.com/promo/jc8t41
 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

BD Gallof on the Lighthouse

http://hockeyindependent.com/blog/?p=11186
 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