photo courtesy of http://blogimages.thescore.com/Tonight, the Islanders shocked most people outside of Long Island defeating the Penguins by a score of 4-3 to tie their series at 1-1. Here are some of my notes:
-The impact of Kyle Okposo can't be stated enough! His fight in the second period totally changed the game and gave the Islanders the spark they needed! He really played like a leader in this game and it was nice to see.
-After a less than stellar start, Nabby had a solid game! He made a couple big saves when the time came and was truly the teams best penalty killer. The team will need that type of performance from Nabby if they want to win this series.
-After a rough start the defense had a pretty good game! Matt Carkner had his best game in a while tonight.
-David Ullstrom had a solid game tonight after not playing for a while.
-Nice to see the first line get the boost they needed with the line changes made for the game tonight.
-Nice shrewdness shown by the coaching staff with the lineup changes for tonights game.
-Brian Strait had his best game tonight that he has had since returning from injury.
-Nice game from Matt Martin, he was truly a presence which is exactly what you expect from him.
-The team in general did a good job being physical with the Penguins two best players. They showed that they are vulnerable to retaliatory penalties when those two players get touched.
-The Islanders showed tonight that Marc Andre Fleury is beatable, they need to follow that strategy going forward to continue the momentum gained by tonights win.
Coming into this series, everyone would've signed up for a 1-1 series tie going back to the Coliseum. Sure, Wednesday was bad, but with the victory tonight it is a whole new series. On top of that, the Islanders now have home ice advantage with 3 of the last 5 games of the series being at the Coliseum. The noise level of the Coliseum on Sunday is going to be unparalleled! It will truly be an incredible experience and will be the chance for the NHL to find out what a real loud arena sounds like.
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