Penalty Shots

Some things you might not have known...

Martin Straka's goal is the first-ever penalty shot goal in an Islander-Ranger game. There were three previous failures:

Don Murdoch on Chico Resch 1/28/78 Randy Wood on Mike Richter 4/5/90 [playoffs] Claude Lapointe on Mike Richter 10/25/98

[There has never been a penalty shot goal in an Islander-Devil game.]

Straka is now 3/8 on his career in penalty shots [3/7 in regular season and 0/1 in playoffs]

DiPietro had stopped four previous penalty shots: Stopped Michael Nylander [WSH], December 21, 2002 Stopped Erik Cole [CAR], April 2, 2004 Stopped Patrik Stefan [ATL], October 25, 2005 Stopped Dany Heatley [OTT], November 5, 2005

It's the first time in Islander history that they've allowed two penalty shot goals in one season [Vincent Lecavalier scored on January 2nd].

DiPietro has now faced five penalty shots, tying the club record set by Kelly Hrudey. [Resch, Smith and Snow have each faced four in regular season play]

The Isles have allowed five penalty shots this season, which is a new club record. The previous mark of four was set in the 1977-78 season. The Isles faced only three penalty shots in all of the 1990's [779 regular season games]

Leaguewide, there have been 28 penalty shot goals on 73 shots this season. Both are NHL records by wide margins. The shooters are getting more accurate too-- over the prior two seasons combined there were 27 goals on 96 shots. There were only 27 penalty shot goals throughout the league over the first eight seasons of Islander history.

Shaw now 5-3-1 as Isles coach

With Tuesday's win over Washington, Brad Shaw is now 5-3-1 behind the Isles bench and the team has not gone consecutive games without a point at any time during his tenure. Shaw is the only interim coach in Isles history to hold a winning record after nine games; the only other time any Islander coach held a winning record nine games into any tenure was when Peter Laviolette was 7-0-1-1 in his first nine games.