Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Isles Struggles Continue in Loss to Hawks

Tonight, our Islanders for the first time this season dropped their 4th straight game as they fell 4-1 to the Blackhawks.  Here are some of my notes:

-The power play was a huge deciding factor in this game.  To have a 5 minute major power play and only muster up 1 shot is unacceptable!  The power play in the third period wasn't much better.  Could Weight be showing he is better suited for a front office role than a coaching role?

-Michal Neuvirth had a rough game as well.  While the teams play around him didn't help, he let in multiple questionable goals tonight.  After his fantastic play with Buffalo, Neuvirth has been underwhelming to say the least in his 4 starts with the Islanders.

-Having Brian Strait and Matt Donovan both in the lineup isn't fair to the Islanders.  On Marian Hossa's first goal of the game, Strait didn't even play defense, he just watched Toews make the pass over to Hossa and Hossa proceed to finish it.  An awful job by Strait!

-Also, on that play, Thomas Hickey was out muscled pretty easily by Jonathan Toews.  You could tell that Hickey was trying but Toews wasn't having it.  The injuries to Leddy and Visovsky really bring out the shortcomings of Hickeys game.

-The sooner that Kyle Okposo shakes his rust off the better it will be for the Islanders.  You can tell watching Okposo out there that he isn't 100% back yet.

This is unfamiliar territory for this years Islanders.  With just 10 games left in the season, it will be interesting to see how they stifle this, or if they let it get out of control like Islanders teams of previous years.

Next Game: Saturday @ New Jersey

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