About the home losing record that is. He’s heard it too often.
“We’re not talking about it anymore. I’m tired of listening to you guys about it. I’m tired of listening about our home record and how we play at home. We have one singular focus, and that’s to win hockey games. That’s the bottom line. We have no distractions any more.”
If Jack looks at the Long Island media as a distraction, he’s lucky he’s not in Toronto. When asked what they did differently, Jack said they didn’t do anything different, except battle. “We’ve gotten some bad bounces here, there’s no questioned. We battled and got the win against a pretty good hockey team.”
But would it have been enough if Anderson was in net or if the Sens had some of their other key players were in the line-up?
“We just have to get better every day. This game is behind us now. It’s our ninth win. We’re still not where we want to be.”
Jack said the key for this team is to play it simple. “That’s the way we need to play.”
Insidehockey.com’s Brad Kurtzberg asked Brad Boyes what the coaches said on the bench after giving up the lead. He told him “Keep going. It was a bad bounce. We’ll get the two points.”
Somehow, they seemed confident they would end up with the ‘W’ but Boyes knows that every game isn’t a given. “Every time we play, we have to learn.”
John Tavares was still under the weather and you could hear it in his voice as he sniffled during post game. “We did some good things and found a way to win.” He said they were frustrated by some of the calls, but they stressed just sticking with their game.
When asked about his shoot out move, he admitted he had tried it before and felt confident when he picked up the puck and “tied to sell the shot.” Even without “the extra gears” he would normally have if he felt better, he sold the move and then some.
Matt Martin didn’t get the memo about not talking about the home record. It’s okay though, I think Jack will forgive him. “You need to take advantage of your home games. Obviously we’ve had some success on the road, but if you’re playing .500 hockey at home, you’re in a playoff spot. So we need to get back to playing the right way at home and winning games.”
Martin didn’t drop the gloves, but played a very physical game on the Sens top guys. His big hits frustrated them and wore them down. The shoot out win, finally cured some of the Isles fans frustrations.
And it was a good thing.
New York Islanders Blogger • 
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