The Islanders opened their season at home Saturday evening, hosting the rough and tough Philadelphia Flyers. The Islanders won the game 4-2, and it was a tale of two separate lines for the defending champs.
The Isles first line features Joe Sakic, with Marian Hossa and Nik Hagman as his wingers, and the top defence pairing of Zdeno Chara and Andy Delmore. This line was anything but impressive, as each player finished -2 on the night. Zdeno Chara did make one impact on the night however, as he won a fista-cuffs with Philly`s Martin Grenier. The two brutes (Chara stands 6`9” and 255lbs, while Grenier clocks in at 6`5” and 245lbs) traded blows for almost a minute solid, and only because Chara fell on top of Grenier at the end did he get the win.
The Islander`s 2nd line was much more impressive, as every player earned a +4 on the night. LW Ladislav Nagy scored a pair of goals, RW Timofei Shishkanov had 2 assists, and Mike Peca had a goal and 2 assists. It wasn`t only the forwards who got in on the action, as Nicklas Lidstrom had 3 assists, and Christian Ehroff had the first goal of the game.
David Aebischer was solid in his season 6 debut, stopping 27 of 29 shots. In the Philly end, Martin Gerber was only able to stop 18 of 22 shots. Islander Coach Lorne Henning was happy with the win; however a couple of concerns will keep him up tonight. “The first line just wasn`t playing as a unit tonight. Chara and Delmore were hitting everything that moved out there, but as a result were often left out of position, and both goals against were directly related to that.
The other worry is that we only managed to get 22 shots on net. In this tough conference, you need to produce more scoring chances, and therefore shots. It`s something we`ll be working on at practice tomorrow.
The Islander`s next game is Tuesday, when they`ll host the St. Louis Blues.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home