Friday, November 4, 2011

Post Game: Isles lose 3-0!!

Tonight, in a game that the Isles only showed up for half of, they fell 3-0 to the Jets in the teams return to LI. Here are some of my notes from the game:

-In general DP didn't play terrible, although he needs to ween himself from playing the puck, there were multiple times were that led to turnovers and that helps nobody. Only big criticism I can give him play wise is to COVER THE PUCK!! He doesn't cover the puck nearly enough and often puts the defense in really tough situations. So far it really hasn't come back to bite him, but everyone knows that eventually it will.

-The first period tonight, in the beginning and end I thought they looked ok to pretty good. However in the middle ten minutes they were just putrid!!

-Kyle Okposo is quickly joining the Bailey and Comeau club of lostness! Outside of his pass to Grabner for that one sweet powerplay goal last weekend his contributions in this young season have been minimal at best.

-Once again the fourth line was pretty solid!

-Would like to note Matt Martin though because he was a tank tonight drilling everything in site. He was just on fire and was forechecking like a mad man.

-Baileys line didn't play bad either!!

-When it comes to JT you can see at times that he is pressing. For example tonight in I believe was the third period he tried to go one on three with three Jets players toward the end of a shift nonetheless. I know Tavares is a good players and in the not so distant future will be the best player we've had in some time. However not even the very best of player can get out of situations like that. You have to dump it in there to go off for the change, but his pressing was exposed there.

-The second period in general was pretty solid. They had good pressure and overall as a team looked good.

-So what the hell happened in intermission between the second and third period?? The third period was one of the single worst periods of hockey this team has played all year. Like I described it on twitter, "This period is embarrassing, disgraceful, and pathetic wrapped in one." The fact that the team only had 3 shots in the period and didn't get the first one til there was under 5 minutes left isn't even the biggest issue for me. For me, what the biggest issue was, was the teams difficulty to get out of their zone. I lost count of the times that they got the puck to the redline and turned it over. I am sorry, but your not going to win many games doing that.

-Given that though, Pavlec played a great game in the first two periods for the Jets making some awesome saves. So he really should be given a large amount of responsibility for their teams win tonight. That and the fact that the Islanders just can't finish right now!

-Like I said in the first sentence it was like they only showed up for half a game. I am sorry, but when your in the midst of a 5 game losing streak after the type of streak we went through last year how aren't you going guns a blazing for 60 plus minutes every night? This is especially true for the young guys! When you have guys like Pandolfo going down to block shots in the final minutes of a loss then in the midst of a change he dishes it up to Comeau for example and Comeau misses the pass because he was caught flat footed. That shouldn't happen especially with regard to the younger players but I have seen it more then once this year and the coaches need to slam home that its not acceptable!!

-Furthering on that, the fancy bullcrap this team does very often needs to stop. When your in the midst of a losing streak like they are you don't worry about making the pretty pass, or making the sweet move to set up a shot. You get pucks on net, you charge the net, and you finish your checks. Fancy plays are also higher risk and the people involved look foolish if it doesn't pan out. The coaches should also hammer this home, ENOUGH WITH THE FANCY CRAP!! What I am mainly referring to is the blind passes this team does all the time. Sure when it connects its like wow. But more often then not, it doesn't connect and given the streak this team is currently in you can't play like that. With an already lowered confidence, giving up the first goal would lower it that much more.

Postgame, Cappy said to expect some line changes for the game Saturday because they, "need to score goals." Well they better do something because if they don't, its going to be a very long Saturday night at the Coliseum.

Next Game: Saturday 7PM @Home VS the Caps

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