I was worried, but so was Dr. David Lubin. He felt the Lightning would lose this one. I felt the Islanders would hand us another disappointing loss. I should listen to the good doctor. It was one of those games that kept you on the edge of your seat as the teams traded tying and go-ahead goals.
The Islanders held their usual nemesis Marty St. Louis to just two shots on goal. It was Steve Downie who had seven while ex-Islander Nate Thompson had five. By the time the final buzzer sounded, under worked Marty Biron had faced 42 shots. The Islanders had blocked 14 additional shots, one of which almost cracked Doug Weight’s “20 year old” shin pad.
Biron played so well, he even earned an assist on Richard Park’s first goal of the evening. While everyone crowded around the game winner, Richard Park, Marty sat in his stall talking to his goalie coach. When Sudsie left the room, I took the opportunity to rush over to our winning goal tender to ask him a few questions. Since I had lost my internet connection in the press box, I couldn’t look up his stats on how many assist points he has had. “This year? Oh, career? Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t had one in a long time. Twice, I almost hit Parkie on a breakaway earlier in the second period. We talked about the Tampa forecheck before the game and how they like to send their guys on the wall. The one time I had Jesse on the wall as a winger, a couple of times I just had to go out the middle. It’s not something you want to do all the time but it just so happens I did it twice in the same period and that was enough. There was a couple of times I thought I could’ve played up there, but I just left it for the “D” and it worked out even better. So sometimes you have to hold it back a little bit.” His words are always punctuated with that broad smile and an occasional chuckle that makes my recorder shake.
Yes, this was not just keeping Tampa Bay from sweeping the Islanders for the ’09-’10 season, it was a night of much needed confidence building. Even though Richard Park told the reporters that confidence can only take them so far, it certainly helped Doug Weight. His team mates mugged him on the ice as if he had won the lottery when he finally found the back of the net at 4:26 of the second period which tied the game at two after Lundin had put the Bolts up late in the first. It meant almost more to his team mates than to Doug.
When I asked Biron, he couldn‘t say enough. “He battled extremely hard. We all know that physically he’s got some aches and pains. It’s a huge commitment for him to come out and show the dedication that he’s got. That shot he blocked in the second period, just about shattered his shin guards. You know, I feel for the guys who have to get in front of pucks when they don’t have a lot of gear. It’s great to see a guy like him, whose a great Captain and one of the best guys I’ve ever played with, to see that he can definitely play at a high level and get us going. That second goal really got us going. You’re down 2 - 1, you’re not sure really how it’s going to go and he gets that goal and gave us a burst of energy and knowing that we’re going to score goals today.”
And score they did, beginning with Blake Comeau making up for the faux pas on his last game when he failed to connect with a perfect pass by John Tavares. Tavares did connect again with Kyle Okposo in a move they should start naming for him. There was Weight’s first and Richard Park’s pair.
Park has had so many goals taken away from him this season that the game winner looked as if it would have the same fate. It went to video review and while the puck was literally a hair in over the line, Toronto got it right and the goal counted. It was Park’s sixth of the year and the game winner.
Matt Martin had his second NHL fight of his career with Nate Thompson. Matt is incredibly strong and stable on his skates and the fight seemed to last the length of a typical boxing round.
“Originally I was going to try to fight Ohlund for the hit on Tavares. Nate Thompson came over and so I accepted.” It seems Matt had a good relationship with Nate during training camp, but that didn’t stop him from trying to pummel him to the ice. “It’s just part of the game.” he told Blog Boxer Rob McGowan. I asked Matt if he had said anything to the linesmen before they stopped the fight. “Yeah, they tried to come in a little earlier and Nate and I waved them off, but it was kind of over there when Nate stopped throwing and I stopped throwing and we were just waiting for someone to come in. Eventually they did.”
Nate and Matt received five for fighting, but Matt received a game misconduct as well. We’re not quite sure about that one.
Scott Gordon was pleased, in his typical quiet way, but did tell Newsday’s Katie Strang that in essence the win hardly makes up for the seven straight losses the Islanders suffered and did make mention of them not scoring on their better opportunities (that would be the Power Play, now wouldn’t it?)
“It’s funny, we win tonight five - four, but those seven losses, there were probably some games in there that we played a lot better than we did tonight but the puck went in for us. Obviously tonight we did some things right to give us those opportunities, we went to the net and made it hard for Nittymaki to control rebounds.”
At least the Penalty Kill was doing pretty well for the Islanders who actually had to kill off a five on three in the first two minutes of the game. All the Tampa goals came at even strength, so they actually killed off a half dozen penalties, while they went 0 for 4 on the Power Play.
Chances and confidence. Tomorrow they have a chance to see if they can increase both as they face off against the Ottawa Senators for an early Valentine’s evening game. If they manage to end this weekend with four points, I think Scott Gordon will feel pretty good getting on that plane to Vancouver on Monday night. Here’s hoping to him feeling good.
New York Islanders Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»