Isles To Open In Pittsburgh! Traffic Troubles For Game 3?

Well, with the Ottawa Senators defeating the Bruins tonight, that set the Islanders first round matchup with the Penguins in stone.

The series will open at 7:30 on Wednesday in Pittsburgh and game 2 will be Friday in Pittsburgh.  Meanwhile game three will be at the Coliseum Sunday at 12:00 noon (more on that later.)  Game 4 will be Tuesday at the Coliseum at 7:00.  Full schedule can be found below:

http://islanderspointblank.com/islanders/islanders-vs-penguins-first-round-schedule/

Traffic Troubles For Game 3?

Coincidentally, the day of the first playoff home game is also the day of the LI Marathon, an annual event for decades in this area.  The event starts on Charles Lindbergh BLVD right behind the Coliseum that morning and ends in Eisenhower park.

The marathon is going to make traveling to the game early for some quite a hassle.  Here are a list of road closures for the marathon courtesy of Newsday:

"Charles Lindbergh Boulevard, 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.; MerrickAvenue, north of Hempstead Turnpike, 7:30 a.m. to 9:45 a.m.; Old Country Road from Post Avenue to School Street: 7:45 a.m. to 10 a.m.;

School Street from Old Country Road to Railroad Avenue, 7:45 a.m. to 10 a.m.; Railroad Avenue, 7:45 a.m. to 10 a.m.; Post Avenue from Railroad Avenue to Jericho Turnpike, 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.; Wantagh Parkway from Northern State Parkway to Merrick Road, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Salisbury Park Drive southbound, 7:45 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.; JerichoTurnpike eastbound from Post Road to Brush Hollow Road, 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.; Brush Hollow Road north of Wantagh Parkway, 8:15 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.; Carmen Avenue from Old Country Road to Nottingham Road, 8:15 a.m. to 2 p.m.;

Meadowbrook Parkway exits and entrances to and from Charles Lindbergh Boulevard and Eisenhower Park, 5:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.; Eisenhower Park’s Park Boulevard will not allow through traffic from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.; Hempstead Turnpike entrance to the park will remain open with a turnaround at the golf course until 10 a.m."

http://www.newsday.com/sports/long-island-marathon-road-closures-1.2847489

Isles Make A Couple Callups

According to various reports, the Islanders made a couple call ups today in anticipation of next weeks playoffs.

Notable call ups include, Ryan Strome, Matt Donovan, Brock Nelson, & Anders Nilsson.  For a complete  list check out islanderspointblank.com below.

A couple notable names not mentioned were Nino Niederreiter & Rick Dipietro.  Niederreiter is going to go play in the World Championships overseas in Germany.  Meanwhile, I'm not sure if Wang will have DP as a guest for a game.  If not, it doesn't seem like the former goalie will be in attendance for any of the games.

For those wondering, the kids weren't called here to play.  They were called here to practice with the team and experience what this time of year is like.  If injuries occur though they could see some action.

http://islanderspointblank.com/news/eight-sound-tigers-recalled-nino-headed-to-world-championships/

NHL News: Ilya Bryzgalov Talks About The Philly Media

He may not be a great goalie, but man is he funny!!

Isles Fall In Regular Season Finale 2-1

Tonight, our Islanders came out again with another lackluster effort and fell to the Sabres by a score of 2-1 in a shootout.  Here are some of my notes:

-Well, its been 3+ poor games from the team.  If this doesn't concern you I don't know what will.  The team got a point gift wrapped to them by Ryan Miller tonight otherwise they would've reserved a flight to Pittsburgh post game.  This isn't the way you want to head into the playoffs.

-I thought Tavares played better tonight because he was getting a lot of chances.  The guy can't seem to hit the net though.  He had six attempted shots today and only two hit the net.  He isn't the only one, its really a team wide thing but he is the most notable.

-After having a day off Nabby was pretty sharp tonight and gave the team a chance to win which is all you can ask from a goalie.

-Hickey had a pretty good game!  Was anyone else surprised when that Buffalo guy only got two minutes for high sticking hickey drawing blood then mugging him?

After last nights loss to the Flyers, people were calling this a must win game for seeding reasons.  Well, the Isles again failed to capitalize and now have to depend on teams this weekend to be victorious in order for them to avoid playing the Penguins in the first round.  Not the position the team wanted to be in, but when you turn in multiple poor games in a row those kind of things happen.

Next Game: Next Tues/Wed @ Washington/Boston/Montreal/or the Penguins

EASTERN	DIV	GP	W	L	OT	P	ROW	GF	GA	DIFF	HOME	AWAY	S/O	L10	STREAK
1	Z - PITTSBURGH	ATL	47	35	12	0	70	32	157	116	+41	17-6-0	18-6-0	3-0	7-3-0	LOST 2
2	X - BOSTON	NE	46	28	13	5	61	24	127	102	+25	16-4-3	12-9-2	4-3	4-5-1	WON 1
3	Y - WASHINGTON	SE	47	26	18	3	55	23	146	128	+18	14-8-1	12-10-2	3-0	8-1-1	OT 1
4	X - MONTRÉAL	NE	47	28	14	5	61	25	145	125	+20	14-7-3	14-7-2	3-2	4-6-0	WON 1
5	X - TORONTO	NE	47	26	16	5	57	26	144	129	+15	13-8-2	13-8-3	0-5	6-3-1	WON 1
6	X - NY ISLANDERS	ATL	48	24	17	7	55	20	139	139	E	10-11-3	14-6-4	4-3	6-1-3	OT 1
7	X - OTTAWA	NE	46	24	16	6	54	20	111	100	+11	15-5-3	9-11-3	4-4	5-5-0	WON 1
8	X - NY RANGERS	ATL	47	25	18	4	54	21	126	112	+14	15-6-2	10-12-2	4-4	7-3-0	WON 1
9	WINNIPEG	SE	48	24	21	3	51	22	128	144	-16	13-10-1	11-11-2	2-3	6-3-1	LOST 2
10	NEW JERSEY	ATL	47	19	18	10	48	17	112	125	-13	13-9-2	6-9-8	2-7	4-5-1	WON 2
11	BUFFALO	NE	48	21	21	6	48	14	125	143	-18	11-10-3	10-11-3	7-4	6-4-0	WON 2
12	PHILADELPHIA	ATL	47	22	22	3	47	21	131	140	-9	15-7-2	7-15-1	1-2	5-5-0	WON 3
13	CAROLINA	SE	47	19	24	4	42	18	125	152	-27	9-14-1	10-10-3	1-1	3-5-2	OT 1
14	TAMPA BAY	SE	47	18	25	4	40	17	145	145	E	12-9-2	6-16-2	1-3	2-6-2	LOST 1
15	FLORIDA	SE	47	14	27	6	34	11	107	168	-61	8-11-5	6-16-1	3-1	2-8-0	LOST 1

 photo courtesy of http://www.nhl.com/ice/standings.htm#?navid=nav-stn-main