New York Islanders Drop Season Opener (Highlights)
The New York Islanders lost their first game of the season to the crosstown rival New York Rangers by a score of 5-3. Here are the highlights.
After a long summer New York Islanders hockey finally returned. The Rangers jumped out to an early lead due to a goal from Michael Grabner, a familiar face. That seemed to be the theme tonight.
Michael Grabner, Frans Nielsen, Thomas Vanek (twice), P.A. Parenteau and Matt Moulson all had goals. It was a goal party for all the former Islanders.
Jaroslav Halak really kept the Islanders in the game through the first period. They weren’t creating much scoring opportunists and he was able to bail the Isles out with some big saves.
More of the same continued in the second period. The only line that had anything resembling offensive chances was the Tavares line. Everyone else was M.I.A. So when a puck went off of Ryan Strome‘s skate and into the net the Islanders found themselves heading into the third period down two goals.
Luckily the Islanders came out flying in the third period. They got a Nick Leddy goal just 47 seconds into the third period.
Then not even 4 minutes later Cal Clutterbuck tied the game as he tipped one past Henrik Lundqvist.
CLUTTERBUCK! All tied up #Isles pic.twitter.com/0gL4Ybvnmk
— Eyes on Isles (@eyesonislesFS) October 14, 2016
So after being completely outplayed through the first two periods the Islanders came storming back and we had ourselves a game. That is until Chris Kreider beat Halak to give the Rangers back the lead.
They weren’t done yet. They got a power play goal shortly after and then an empty netter from J.T. Miller made it 5-2 Rangers and it looked all but over. In mop up time Brock Nelson made it 5-3 to momentarily re-grasp our interest. Although by that point it was too late.
The Rangers were the better team tonight. The Islanders took too many bad penalties, were bad on the power play and for a majority of the game had no offense besides their top line. That’s not a winning formula.
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