Stat Trick: Florida 3, Isles 2

Joey MacDonald played his first game in over three weeks, and seemed a little rusty early.  Rusty enough to end the Isles 4 game win streak.  On to the trick:

1.  JAy Bouwmeester and Karlin Skrastins scored first period goals for the Cats, who had the game's first six shots, leading up to a long-range goal by Bouwmeester.

2.  The Isles benefited from 4 Panther penalties in the second period. scoring twice with the extra-man.  Josh Bailey and Trent Hunter had the goals --  it was the 2nd goal for Bailey and the 88th career goal for Hunter --with exactly 1/4 of them on the powerplay (22).

3.  Richard Zednik sandwiched the Isle pp goals with a beautiful goal of his own.  Another ex-Isle, Bryan McCabe, earned an assist on the game-winning tally as the Panthers improved to 9-2-3 in 2009.

and a few more...

4.  Kyle Okposo was on the ice for both pp goals, but did not record a point, ending his point streak at 5.

5.  MacDonald made 26 saves, but drops his 4th straight decision.  He's 1-13-2 in his last 17 appearances (1 no decision)'

6.  The Isles had only 22 shots on goal on Tomas Vokoun, but there were 18 shots blocked by Panthers and 16 others that missed the net

7.  The home team won all 4 games of this series.  The Isles have dropped 5 straight in Sunrise.for the first time in thier history.

8.  With Mark Streit out injured, Chris Campoli saw his time on the pp (5:08) and led the Ises with 24:24 of overall ice-time.  Nate THompson played only 2:33 and left with a shoulder injury.. Jack Hillen and Joe Callahan replaced the injured Streit and Pock and each played over 12:30

9.  Maybe it's the Islander-Ranger thing, but Soup's son Gregory Campbell always seems to play well against the Isles.  Tonight was no exception, winning 11 of 16 draws, with three hits and two blocks.

10.  Up next: the mini road trip concludes in Tampa on Saturday.  The Isles lead the season 2 games to 0 (4 points to 1).  Overall the Isles have won 5 of 6 from Tampa and earned points in 5 of the last 7 (5-1-1) between the teams.
 Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since 1982.