Isles had a wild weekend taking it to the Penguins on Friday in front of a packed house in Uniondale and then losing to the Habs in Montreal on Saturday.
Blame it on… on…. Back-to-back games? Nah, they are 6-2-0 on second nighters. Lack of sleep? Well, they did get into Montreal late. Lack of pre-game skate? That was Jack’s call. Who knows? The roster was exactly the same for both games. Chad Johnson did see some game action, but only after Halak had been pulled from the net after giving up six goals. Perhaps he should have started the game, but we can’t put the entire loss on an overworked Jaro.
We can say he’s not a happy Jaro as noted by the recap on NHL.com.
"I'm sure he's frustrated," Islanders coach Jack Capuano said of Halak, a former Canadiens player. "It's not the outcome that he wanted but we didn't play very well in front of him."
Jack Capuano told the reporters they mismanaged the puck. The Isles were credited with 17 giveaways after two periods. “We made it a half-court game and you're not going to win like that." Why he needed a basketball reference in there I don’t know. Let’s call it the “Barclay’s effect.…
Jack couldn’t have been too angry with Kyle Okposo who scored his 14th goal of the season at the 10:52 mark of the second, giving the Isles hope making it a 2-1 game. Or Nikolay Kulemin who scored his 9th at the 16:19 mark of the second putting the Isles back within one goal at 3-2. Or Anders Lee who cut the Canadiens lead in half to a daunting 6-3 at the 14:50 mark of the third. No, there were bright spots in a game that got away from them.
Both Tavares and Okposo had two point nights each with a goal and an assist. Josh Bailey keeps adding to his assist count and is now at 13. He’s closing in on Nelson and Nielsen who both have 15. But it was the four point night by Montreal’s Tomas Plekanec that helped do them in.
So, you can’t win them all and after the high the Isles and the fans were on Friday night, we have to just let this one go.
Let’s keep an eye on the fact that the Isles beat the Penguins 6-3 and chased Marc Andre Fleury from the net. Let’s smile at the image of Kyle Okposo sitting on the bench after scoring four goals, including his first NHL hat trick. Let’s get that warm fuzzy feeling thinking about Trottier being in the building to see it.
That’s what we should remember this weekend… and then turn on a football game and order some chicken wings.