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