Silver Skinny on the Streaking Islanders

The Silver Skinny On the Streaking Islanders By Eric Hornick, FSNY

The Isles are 11-4-3 for 25 points in last 18 games; this is their most points in an eighteen game stretch since they went 12-4-0-2 in a similar stretch in December 2001/January 2002.

The Isles are also 8-3-1 in their last twelve games.

If the Islanders win tonight…

They’ll have earned 27 points in a nineteen game stretch for the first time since the 1989-90 season (they had several overlapping stretches of 31 points in nineteen games that season) If the Islanders lose in overtime or in a shootout tonight…

They’ll have 26 points in a nineteen game stretch – last done under Laviolette in 2001-02 and again in 2002-03.

The Islanders begin the day with a share of first place in the Atlantic. It’s the latest that this has happened in a season since the morning of December 23, 2001.

EASTERN CONFERENCE Atlantic Division W-L-T-OL Pts GF GA NY Rangers 19-14-3-2 43 108 106 NY Islanders 18-10-5-2 43 97 86 Philadelphia 18-10-5-1 42 100 74 New Jersey 14-13-5-2 35 79 85 Pittsburgh 14-15-5-2 35 81 99 The Rangers beat Ottawa on 12/23/01 to take the Division lead to the Christmas break…and while the Isles would finish the season only two points out of first place, they never again shared the lead.

If the Isles end today in sole possession of first place, it would mark the first time that this has happened since the night of December 14, 2001.

The Isles are 6-3-1 in November. If they earn one more point this month, they will have consecutive winning Novembers for the first time since 1983-1986 [4 straight]. The Isles went 7-6-1 last November and haven’t won more than seven November games since 1987.

Believe it or not—the Isles have already wrapped up a second consecutive winning November on the road [5-3-0 last year and 4-1-1 with one game to play this year]. It’s only the second time in Islander history that they’ve had winning records on the road in consecutive Novembers – Al Arbour never did it, but Terry Simpson did – going 4-2-0 in 1986 and 3-2-0 in 1987.