Isles Fall 5-3 To Ducks In Familiar Movie

 photo by theproducersperspective

Tonight was an oh so familiar game for our Islanders.  The team held a 3-1 lead heading to the third period only to blow that lead by giving up 4 third period goals and being defeated by a score of 5-3 by the Ducks.  A recent piece from the Wall Street Journal had a stat that the Islanders are the only team in the NHL to have a losing record when taking a lead into the third period or acquiring the lead in the third period.  If that doesn't tell you all you need to know about this years Islanders team I don't know what will.  Here are some of my notes from tonight's game:

-The teams defense on the Ducks second goal was pretty bad.  They all converged on the middle and yet nobody could clear the puck.  The third goal was a mixture of defense and officials.  The Islanders should've been on a power play at the time as Kyle Okposo had just been high sticked roughly a minute prior to the goal right in front of the official with no call being made.  However, the Ducks forward was able to get by our defense pretty easily on the way to scoring the goal.

-I was skeptical of starting Nabokov in the back to back but he surprised me.  He wasn't perfect, obviously, but he played well enough for the Islanders to win which is all you can expect from him.

-Calvin de Haan continues to impress

-Good to see Vanek have another good game tonight after getting the winner last night.

-One week in and Ryan Strome is looking just fine at this level.  He hasn't been able to get his first goal yet but he has gotten a few chances so it will come.

Through two periods tonight's game looked pretty promising.  However, a familiar thing happened tonight with the blown third period lead.  That took what was a promising game and turned it into yet another disappointing defeat.  The win over the Rangers was nice but winning a game every week to ten days which is what the team is pretty much doing right now won't get them anywhere in the long run.  If they want to save their hopes of a possible playoff run, they need to remember how to play winning hockey like they did at the end of last season, or this will be chalked up as yet another lost season for the Islanders.

Next Game: Monday 12/23 7:30 @ Detroit