The Skinny: Isles 3, San Jose 2 (SO)

“The Skinny”

By Eric Hornick

Game 32

Isles 3, San Jose 2 (shootout)

Kyle Okposo scored the tying goal with Kevin Poulin on the bench and then had the deciding goal in the shootout as the Isles rallied from a 2-0 deficit for a 3-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks before a sellout crowd of 17,562 at SAP Center at San Jose. The win ends the Islanders’ 10-game winless streak and 10-game road losing streak and moves the Isles within 8 points of third place Carolina in the Metropolitan Division.

The Scoring:

1st Period

NONE

2nd Period

05:26    SJS PPG - Patrick Marleau (14) Wrist shot - ASST: Dan Boyle (8), Logan Couture (20) 1 - 0 SJS  

15:24    SJS Joe Pavelski (10) Wrist shot - ASST: Dan Boyle (9), Patrick Marleau (16)      2 - 0 SJS         

3rd Period

00:51    NYI Thomas Vanek (10) Wrist shot - ASST: Kyle Okposo (19), John Tavares (23) 2 - 1 SJS

18:23    NYI Kyle Okposo (9) Wrist shot - ASST: John Tavares (24)          2 - 2 Tie

OT Period

None

The Shootout:

Joe Pavelski (NG), Thomas Vanek (G), Logan Couture (G), Frans Nielsen (NG), Dan Boyle (NG), John Tavares (NG), Tomas Hertl (NG), Kyle Okposo (G)

The Skinny:  

Thomas Vanek has a goal in two straight games; he is now in the Top 250 of all-time NHL goal scorers…John Tavares has a point on seven of the last nine Isles goals; he is now 6^th in the NHL in assists (24) and 5^th in the league in points (36)... Patrick Marleau now has 418 goals; he has played 1,196 games in his career – all for San Jose. The Isles have been held to two goals or less (not including shootout goals) in nine straight games… Since 2011, the Isles are 2-0-2 in the last four games they have allowed at least 48 shots…The Isles have trailed at some point in all four of their road victories (and have trailed 2-0 in two of them, including tonight)…The Isles are 4-2 in shootouts this season while San Jose is 3-5….It’s the 2^nd time this season that the Isles have scored the tying goal of a game in the 59^th minute (Frans Nielsen vs. Vancouver).. Kyle Okposo now has 9 goals on the season after tallying only four times last season….Okposo records his 2^nd career game-deciding shootout goal; he is 3-16 on shootouts.

The Shots:

Isles       3-11-10-4=28

Sharks  18-11-16-3=48

It’s the most shots against the Isles since Pittsburgh had 54 in a 5-3 Isles win on March 27, 2012 in Pittsburgh.

San Jose has outshot their opponents 86-41 in their last two games.

Home and Road

The Islanders are 9-18-5 overall, 5-6-5 at home and 4-12-0 on the road.   The win ends the third 10-game road losing streak in franchise history as well as a ten-game winless streak overall.

The Sharks are 19-6-6 overall; they are 10-1-3 at home and 9-5-4 on the road.  San Jose had won 5 straight before tonight.

In the Nets

Kevin Poulin made 46 saves and improves to 4-11-0 on the season.  The 46 shots and 44 saves are the second highest totals of Poulin’s career in both categories; he stopped 48 of 51 in an overtime loss to Vancouver on January 11, 2011.  Poulin improves to 2-0 in the shootout, stopping 7 of 10 shots. Each of his last two wins have been in a shootout.

Antii Niemi made 26 saves; he is 16-5-6 on the season.

Power Plays

The Islanders were 0-1 while the Sharks were 1-4.

The Isles are 5-5-3 when they score at least one power play goal and 4-13-2 when they do not.  The Isles are 3-13-3 when they allow at least one power play goal and 6-5-2 when they do not. 

Over the last 22 games, the Isles power play is 7-73 (9.6%) while the penalty kill is 26-72 (63.9%). During the last 11 games, the power play is 3-32 (9.4%)  (and has allowed three shorthanded goals) while the penalty kill is 11-36 (69.4%). 

Three is a Magic Number

The Isles are 9-2-2 when they score at least three goals (including shootout winners) and are 0-16-3 when they do not. 

Helps to Score First

The Isles are 6-3-4 when they score first and are 3-15-1 when they allow the opening goal.  The Isles have allowed the opening goal 10 times in the last 12 games.

Second to The One

Jack Capuano is now 2^nd on the all-time Islander list in both games coached (227) and wins (93).

Most games coached (Islanders):

1.     Al Arbour 1,500

2.     Jack Capuano 227

3.     Mike Milbury 191

4.     Terry Simpson 187

5.     Scott Gordon 181

Most wins by Islander coaches:

1.     Al Arbour 740

2.     Jack Capuano 93

3.     Terry Simpson 81

4.     Peter Laviolette 77

5.     Ted Nolan 74

They Said It

Okposo: “#60 was our best penalty killer tonight.  (On his goal) I had a lane, it had eyes.”

They Tweeted It

@CraigCustance Great moment here in SJ, long standing ovation for Evgeni Nabokov just shown on scoreboard. He was clearly touched by the response.

@MTyranski Psh can't say I could be any happier right now, love my boys! Now time for bed, hope your ok Kevin. #isles

@cward78 Great comeback by Tavares, Poulin and the rest of the boys! Big win tonight! Let's get some momentum going! #Isles

The Coach

“Kevin made some big saves for us…that’s a pretty good hockey team over there.”

Back-to-Backs

The Isles are 3-5-0 in the front-end and 2-4-2 on the back end of back-to-backs this season.

On the eight sets of back-to-backs, they have earned 4 points once, 3 points once, 2 points twice, 1 point once and no points on three occasions.

The next back-to-back set will be December 20^th (at Rangers) and December 21^st (vs. Anaheim).

Head of the Class

John Tavares has 285 career points; he is 71 points ahead of Matt Duchene for most among 2009 draft picks.  No other player from that draft is anywhere close.  Tavares also has more goals and more assists than any other player from that draft.

Leading Ice Men

Travis Hamonic played 27:29 to lead the Isles for the 10th time this season.  Marc-Edouard Vlasic led San Jose with 24:13 of ice-time.

The Isles are 7-11-4 when MacDonald leads them in ice-time and 2-7-1 when Hamonic leads them.

In the Circle

The Islanders won 25 of 57 draws. No Islander center won more than they lost but John Tavares won a key draw to set up Okposo’s tying goal; Joe Thornton won 9 of 12 for the Sharks.

Heavy Hitters

The Isles out-hit the Sharks34-23. Cal Clutterbuck had six hits to lead the Isles. Matt Martin had four hits, extending his NHL-leading total to 158.

There were no fights, leaving the season total at 10: Martin (4), Boulton (3), and Carkner (3).

Giving Up the Body

The Isles were credited with 27 blocked shots. Thomas Hickey led the way with seven while Travis Hamonic and Andrew MacDonald each had five.  MacDonald leads the NHL with 108 blocks.

Back to All-Time .500

The Islanders regain all-time NHL .500 (1380-1380-444 in 3,204 games).  The Isles have finished every season since 1977-78 above all-time NHL .500 and have not been more than 1 game under NHL-.500 since January 11, 1978.

Ironmen

John Tavares is the reigning Islanders’ ironman. Tavares has now played in 239 consecutive games, which is the second-longest streak for an Islander in the Post Cup era.

Frans Nielsen (162) and Kyle Okposo (145) also have streaks of at least 100 consecutive games.

Longest Consecutive Game Streaks, Post Cup Era 

·         Matt Moulson 10/3/2009- 4/4/2013  284

·         John Tavares 10/16/10 – CURRENT  239

·         Richard Park 10/5/2006 – 2/18/2009 221

·         Bryan McCabe 10/7/1995-2/4/1998 220

·         Bryan Trottier 3/7/1981- 1/12/1984 219

·         Mariusz Czerkawski 12/23/1999 – 4/14/2002 215

Missing Men

Lubomir Visnovsky, Brian Strait and Evgeni Nabokov remain on injured reserve. Eric Boulton replaced Peter Regin in the lineup. Radek Martinek was scratched for the fifth straight game. The Isles have lost 75 games this season due to injury.

Pierre-Marc Bouchard cleared waivers and was loaned to Bridgeport.

Nobody Beats the Viz

The Isles were 19-12-4 last season and are 3-3-2 this season with Lubomir Visnovsky in the lineup.  They were 5-5-3 last season and are 6-15-3 this season without him in the lineup.

Career Goals as an Islander

15	Mariusz Czerkawski	145
16	Jason Blake	127
17	John Tavares	124
18	Duane Sutter	121
Career Assists as an Islander
22	Zigmund Palffy		163
23	John Tavares		161
24	David Volek		154
25	Mariusz Czerkawski		150
25	Frans Nielsen		150
27	Travis Green		145

Career Games as an Islander (skaters)

24		Eddie Westfall			493
25		Radek Martinek			476
25		Gerry Hart			476
27		Mariusz Czerkawski			470
34		Jean Potvin			402
35		Frans Nielsen			399
36		David Volek			396
37		Bert Marshall			392
38		Travis Green			388
39		Anders Kallur			383
40		Randy Wood			381
41		Josh Bailey			359
42		Kyle Okposo			351
43		Dave Scatchard			347
52		Eric Cairns			327
53		Alan Kerr			326
54		John Tavares			323
55		Brad Dalgarno			321

Career Points as an Islander

20	Ed Westfall	286
21	John Tavares	285
22	Jason Blake	258
22	Steve Thomas	258
31	Matt Moulson	223
32	Frans Nielsen	220
33	Mikko Makela	219
34	Mark Parrish	214
35	Garry Howatt	213
35	Jean Potvin	213
37	Anders Kallur	211
38	Kyle Okposo	210
39	Marty McInnis	198

Season Series Stats

The Islanders lead the season series one game to none (and two points to one).  The teams will meet again on March 14th on Long Island.

The win breaks Islander four game winless streaks vs. the Sharks both overall (0-2-2 since a comeback victory on President’s Day 2008) and in San Jose (0-3-1 since Garth Snow blanked the Sharks 3-0 on February 19, 2003).

Happy Anniversary

22 years ago tonight: December 10, 1991.  Steve Thomas scored the tying goal with 17 seconds to play and Ray Ferraro scored a natural hat trick as the Isles tied the Blues 7-7 at the Coliseum. Brett Hull scored a goal in each period for St. Louis in the only 7-7 tie in Islander history.

Overall, the Isles are 9-7-2 on this date.

On The Farm

The Sound Tigers were shutout 3-0 by the Albany Devils on Tuesday morning. Ryan Strome did not dress for the game.  The loss breaks Bridgeport’s four game win streak.

The Sound Tigers are now 9-11-1-3 on the season.  The Sound Tigers visit Albany on Friday to begin a 3 game in 3 day weekend.

Anders Lee leads Bridgeport with ten goals; Ryan Strome leads both the team and the AHL in both assists (24) and points (33). 

Up Next

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12th — ISLANDERS AT PHOENIX 9:00PM
[MSG+ (Islanders pre-game at 8:30pm), 88.7 WRHU-FM, 103.9 WRCN-FM]

The 5-game in eight day road trip concludes Thursday in Phoenix as the Isles look to sweep the season series from the Coyotes.

The Isles are 3-1-1 in their last five games against the Coyotes, including a 6-1 victory at the Coliseum in the opening week of the season.  The one Coyote regulation win came in the Isles’ last visit to Phoenix and was capped by Shane Doan’s first career hat trick.

Eric Hornick has been the statistician on Islander home game telecasts since 1982. Information contained in “The Skinny” has been gathered from various sources.  Follow Eric @ehornick on Twitter.