Confounding...and historical

The Isles enter play tonight 13-12-3 overall, 5-8-2 at home and 8-4-1 on the road.

Tonight's game will be only the second time in Islander history that they start a game with a road record of at least 4 games over NHL-.500 and a home record below NHL- .500

On November 19, 1997, Rich Bowness' Isles defeated Detroit at The Joe, 3-2 to improve their overall record to 9-8-4.  They were 6-2-3 on the road, but only 3-6-1 at home.  (The records flipped after that; Bowness was fired by Mike Milbury in March, and the Isles finished with 38 points at home and 33 on the road.)

An Isles regulation loss would leave the team +4 on the road and -4 at home, which has never happened before.  In fact +3/-3 has happened only twice -- the game before and the game after that 11/19/97 game.

 

Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since January 21, 1982. Visit my blog: NYISkinny.com and follow me on Twitter @ehornick