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Bruins 3 Isles 2: "We're at a disadvantage" |
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Scott Gordon didn’t want to hear any more about the trade deadline weighing heavily on the players or the playoff push for that matter either. He was pretty clear the first 20 minutes was filled with the mental mistakes that put the Islanders in an early hole that is too deep to crawl out of now matter how well they play for the next forty minutes.
“It doesn’t have to do with the trade deadline. If anything, we should have been past that after the Atlanta game and learned from it. We didn’t’ learn from it and I’m tired of it. It’s going to stop and I have addressed it with the team.”
What he can’t address with them is something he just has to live with right now.
“At the end of the day, we’re pretty depleted on defense. We’re at a huge disadvantage. It’s not going to be easy. We’re going to get the effort and I know we’re going to get the effort, and we’re going to get better. But to immediately take out two guys who were playing 20 - 24 plus minutes and insert a guy who has never played an NHL game, he’s come in and done a good job. And insert a guy who has been out for a month and a half and is playing with the thought of what it’s like to have a puck hit your face, we are at a huge disadvantage. We’ll get through it but it’s not something -- THAT has more to do with it than the trade deadline. It’s over. We’re trying to win hockey games. We’re trying to get into the playoffs. It’s obviously not going to be easy for us, but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t stopped trying. We obviously played a lot of good hockey in the two games. Unfortunately, we’ve had two bad periods. Like I said to the guys tonight, we played an excellent second and third period. We had two goals scored on us in the second period, the takeaway from all this is that we lost twenty minutes to allow us the opportunity to score a goal.
It’s the fact that we let twenty minutes slip away from us.”
No one could foresee Andrew MacDonald would have a broken foot and be out for basically the balance of the regular season when Andy Sutton was traded for a second round draft pick. Perhaps if there was a hockey crystal ball out there, things would have been different.
That being said, I mentioned to Brad Kurtzberg, from Inside Hockey, that Freddy Meyer had a pretty good game today. It’s the first time I actually noticed him, so it must have been. Bruno Gervais took seven shots today, none went in, but a few were impressive. It was Robbie Schremp who led the team with shots; five on goal and two that were blocked, zero that went in.
The shots that did go in for the Isles came from their leading goal scorer Matt Moulson and one from Josh Bailey who happened to be on top of a pile in Thomas’ net and was lucky enough to nudge the puck passed him.
After being a healthy scratch, Sean Bergenheim played with intensity, but still can't find the back of the net. But it isn't lack of trying. He too had seven shots, but I'm wondering if he is one of those that Gordon was upset with not finishing their hits in the first. Hmmm...
The defensemen Scott Gordon was talking about being pretty ‘green’ (St. Patty’s day reference there) is Dylan Reese, the recent acquisition who didn’t even get to play with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers before being called up to take MacDonald’s place. I had a chance to talk to him after the game today.
Dylan Reese is very familiar with our leading goal scorer, Matt Moulson. I was told by Twitter pal @cbuckser that I should ask Reese about Matt Moulson’s hat trick at Harvard in January of 2004 -- So I did. I think he was a little surprised at the question and worried that I meant he should “literally” tell me about Matt’s hat trick.
“We had some good bouts with Cornell. Obviously he was a proven goal scorer in college, it took him a couple of years in the minors, but he’s proven already that he can do it at this level as well. He has over 20 goals already this season. He used to beat us in College, there’s no question about that. It was definitely a good day when he graduated. No complaints there. “
Reese was on the ice with Robbie Schremp who fed him the puck at least twice that I saw. I asked him how he felt his second game. “I felt much, much better, no question. Of course, I had a little more ice time, showed a little more confidence in me. But I took a bad penalty there and it cost us on the power play. But I definitely felt better today just after a couple of games. The game has to slow down a little bit more and get a little more confident with the puck and showing a little bit more poise. On a whole, personally, I felt much better. To be honest, the second two periods we played, we outplayed them; no question. Our goalie gave us a chance to win. We just couldn’t find the back of the net when we needed to.
The Bruins out shot the Islanders by a wide margin in the first, I asked Reese if Scott Gordon said anything after the first (knowing he did, but wondering what the rookie would say.) “Yeah, Oh! Absolutely. They dominated in the first period. We came out a bit slow , but Rolie kept us in the game being down 1 - 0. You know, it’s frustrating. That power play goal they scored kinda bounced off the stanchion. But like I said, it was a bad penalty I didn’t have to take. You take penalties, it ends up in the back of the net. We kind of had that urgency once we were down. We knew we needed to score to get back in it, and we proved that we could be a good team for the last two periods and we outplayed them, no question about that, especially most of the third period, they were back on their heels. Obviously, it would have been good to score a few more goals.”
Like ONE. Just one to tie it up would have given them a second chance to make that first 20 minutes go away. It didn’t happen.
Note: With Blake Comeau refusing to leave the ice on a stretcher after being slammed face first into the glass, Scott Gordon said Comeau was a little sore, but from the sound of it, he doesn’t’ have a concussion.
New York Islanders Blogger • 
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