Isles Overcome Lightning/Refs On Martins Winner

 photo courtesy of http://a.espncdn.com/

Tonight, our New York Islanders continued their red hot play defeating the Lightning by a score of 3-2.  Here are some of my notes:

-Awesome crowd tonight!!  Great atmosphere for most of the game.  The Coliseum when sold out is like no where else.

-Great game from Martin!!  Huge goal from him in the third, probably his biggest as an Islander to this point.

-Awful refs tonight!  As was said in the postage show, the refs pretty much put their whistles away for this game on the Lightning.  Letting somethings go is one thing, but blatant interference and high sticks are a bit ridiculous.

-Our streaky powerplay once again reared its ugly head.  Our lone powerplay tonight was pretty bad.

-Evgeni Nabokov played great tonight!  For a game he didn't give up any softies which is very encouraging.  He really held us in there with some spectacular saves.

-Thought the defense was decent tonight, although they let up far to many chances in front of Nabby.

-Great work tonight by the Bailey, Nielsen, Okposo line.  I thought for sure Okposo was going to turn it over before he dished it to Bailey for the goal.

-Was impressed with Joensuu in his season debut

With tough games coming up next week, tonights game was crucial.  In past years, with terrible officials like we had tonight it would've ended up costing the team the game.  Not tonight, they were able to get through it which is another subtle sign of progress with the team.  It feels like something might be starting to brew with this team and I hope it doesn't end anytime soon.

Next Game: Tuesday @ Home VS The Flyers

EASTERN	DIV	GP	W	L	OT	P	ROW	GF	GA	DIFF	HOME	AWAY	S/O	L10	STREAK
1	* - PITTSBURGH	ATL	39	29	10	0	58	26	127	95	+32	16-5-0	13-5-0	3-0	8-2-0	WON 1
2	* - MONTRÉAL	NE	38	25	8	5	55	22	120	91	+29	13-4-3	12-4-2	3-2	6-3-1	WON 2
3	* - WASHINGTON	SE	38	19	17	2	40	16	113	108	+5	9-8-0	10-9-2	3-0	7-2-1	WON 3
4	BOSTON	NE	37	24	9	4	52	20	102	79	+23	13-2-2	11-7-2	4-2	5-4-1	LOST 1
5	TORONTO	NE	38	21	13	4	46	21	117	106	+11	10-7-2	11-6-2	0-4	6-1-3	WON 1
6	OTTAWA	NE	37	19	12	6	44	15	93	83	+10	13-3-3	6-9-3	4-4	6-4-0	LOST 3
7	NY RANGERS	ATL	38	19	15	4	42	16	93	90	+3	12-6-2	7-9-2	3-4	5-3-2	WON 1
8	NY ISLANDERS	ATL	39	19	16	4	42	16	113	119	-6	8-11-2	11-5-2	3-1	6-3-1	WON 1
9	WINNIPEG	SE	40	19	19	2	40	18	98	120	-22	9-9-0	10-10-2	1-2	3-7-0	WON 1
10	NEW JERSEY	ATL	38	15	14	9	39	13	90	103	-13	10-7-2	5-7-7	2-6	2-5-3	LOST 3
11	PHILADELPHIA	ATL	38	17	18	3	37	16	106	118	-12	12-5-2	5-13-1	1-2	5-3-2	LOST 1
12	BUFFALO	NE	38	15	17	6	36	11	102	116	-14	7-7-3	8-10-3	4-4	5-3-2	WON 2
13	CAROLINA	SE	37	16	19	2	34	16	97	115	-18	7-12-0	9-7-2	0-1	1-8-1	LOST 4
14	TAMPA BAY	SE	37	16	19	2	34	15	119	110	+9	10-7-2	6-12-0	1-2	5-4-1	LOST 1
15	FLORIDA	SE	38	12	20	6	30	9	94	131	-37	6-9-5	6-11-1	3-1	5-5-0	LOST 1

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