Category: Hockey

This was about as encouraging a start to the playoffs as the Islanders could have hoped for. After six weeks of sub-par performances to end the regular season, they played a practically perfect road game. And Jaroslav Halak, despite giving up a goal in the final minute of a period for a fourth straight game, showed that he could shrug off a big mistake and not lose his composure.

But I don’t think Washington gave the Islanders its best game tonight. When Alex Ovechkin seemed most dangerous, he blew the scoring chance by shooting wide. One of those missed opportunities came on a power play in the third period with the Islanders protecting a 3-1 lead. If Ovechkin had been on target with that shot, who knows? Maybe the Islanders’ season-long tendency to lose their defensive structure and blow leads in the third period would have reared its ugly head again.

As it was, Halak finished with 24 saves, a manageable workload for a goaltender whose shaky performances in the final week of the regular season made him a huge question mark coming into the series. And the Isles killed off both of the Caps’ power plays, despite the fact that the players who took those penalties, Michael Grabner and Cal Clutterbuck, both see regular time on the penalty kill. The Islanders did all this despite the absence of the rock of their defense — Travis Hamonic, out with an injury.

What do I know about penalty-killing tactics? Not much, apparently. The Isles did not shadow Ovechkin when they were a man down like I thought they might, but their relentless pursuit of loose pucks when short-handed helped keep “the Great 8” pointless. The Isles played with urgency and made smart decisions with the puck — especially in the third period. This team that had given up 87 third-period goals during the regular season (compared to 58 in the first period) held the Caps to eight third-period shots and no goals.

As for offense, the Isles got goals from each of their top three forward lines. Brock Nelson was the main man, scoring the first goal of the night, then clinching the win with an empty-netter on which he outraced the Caps’ Matt Niskanen for an easy tap-in. It was a fitting ending, considering the Islanders outskated the Capitals all night. The one area where the Isles did not play well was in the face-off circle (39-23, Caps). But one of the Islanders’ infrequent face-off wins, by John Tavares, led directly to the eventual winning goal, by Ryan Strome in the second period. Josh Bailey, left alone in front of the net to whack at two rapid-fire rebounds, had the goal that made it 3-1 entering the third.

Now, I know that one win does not a series make. In 2003, the Islanders won Game 1 at Ottawa 3-0, only to lose the next four games for a quick exit (That was also the last time the Islanders held the lead in a playoff series). I have seen many Stanley Cup playoffs in which the momentum shifts from one team to the other and neither side really has control.

But the Islanders played tonight like a confident team that believes it can go far. And if the Capitals are unable to regain their finishing touch around the net, Nassau Coliseum might be in for a send-off to remember.

Question before Game 2: Am I related to Rob Scuderi? As far as I know, I am not, although we are both New Yorkers (I’m from Westchester, he’s from Long Island). But I’m not too happy with my namesake right now, because it was his hard but clean check into the boards that resulted in Hamonic’s injury last Friday night in Pittsburgh. Scuderi even scored his only goal of the season in that 3-1 Islanders win, part of that four-game streak against Halak in the final minute of a period. I suppose I do owe the veteran defenseman a debt of gratitude for getting my last name engraved on the Stanley Cup twice. However, I’ll be rooting for the Rangers in their series with the Penguins. An Islanders-Rangers series in the Eastern Conference semifinals would show those folks in the Geico commercials just how tough hockey rivalries really are.

Filed April 15, 2015

Sources: NHL.com, hockey-reference.com, Islanders Insight blog, MSG Network

 

The Islanders’ chances of winning a playoff series for the first time since 1993 rest on the shoulders of Jaroslav Halak.

Defenseman Johnny Boychuk, in a WFAN radio interview with Evan Roberts, said earlier today that the Islanders’ struggles down the stretch mean nothing now because the playoffs are a whole new season. Well, no one in Islanders blue and orange needs to take that message to heart more than the starting goaltender.

When last we saw Halak, he was lying face-down in his crease, deeply disappointed with himself for blowing a chance to defeat the Columbus Blue Jackets in a shootout in the Islanders’ final regular-season game at Nassau Coliseum, where a win would have secured home-ice advantage against Washington. Halak actually had four chances in the final week to give the Isles the one point they needed to leapfrog the Capitals in the standings. He blew them all, beginning Tuesday with an inexplicable long-range shot he failed to stop with 2.1 seconds left in Philadelphia, after the Islanders had scored two empty-net goals to tie the Flyers. Against Columbus on Saturday night, knowing the Caps had lost to the Rangers earlier in the day, Halak blew 3-1 and 4-3 leads in the third period, then failed to stop the Blue Jackets’ third attempt in the shootout — a save that would have clinched the victory. And so it was that the Coliseum’s chants of “We want home ice!” were not fulfilled.

All would be forgiven, however, if Halak shows the Capitals the same form he showed them in 2010, when he led the Canadiens to a seven-game series upset of top-seeded and Presidents’ Trophy-winning Washington. The ultimate redemption for Halak would be to steal Game 7 for the Islanders and turn home ice into a non-issue. That’s what he did for Montreal five years ago, stopping 41 of 42 shots to beat the Capitals 2-1 in the series clincher.

The Habs rallied from a 3-1 series deficit in that Eastern Conference quarterfinal — just as the Islanders did against Washington to win the 1987 Patrick Division series capped by the four-overtime “Easter Epic” in Game 7. Those are but two of many playoff disappointments endured over the years by the Caps. It’s a trend that has continued into the Alex Ovechkin era. Remember, Washington also lost a Game 7 on home ice to the Rangers in 2013, their last postseason appearance.

Washington entered the NHL for the 1974-75 season but has never won the Stanley Cup.

Question for Game 1: Will the Islanders’ penalty killers go with a triangle-and-one of sorts? Alex Ovechkin led the league in goals scored and is lethal on the power play, where he usually sets up in the face-off circle to the goalie’s right. From there, he frequently can one-time a rocket, and his right-handed shot from the off-wing gives him more net to shoot at. One ploy I’ll be looking for will be whether the Islanders shadow Ovechkin everywhere he goes during a power play and challenge the Caps’ other four skaters to beat them. Shadowing Ovechkin might also position the Isles to intercept a pass intended for him and launch a short-handed counterattack.

Filed April 14, 2015

Sources: MSG Network, NHL.com, hockey-reference.com and Total Stanley Cup: The Official Encyclopedia of the Stanley Cup.