The moral of this story? You don’t get to win every night.
Sometimes a team coming off a thrashing in Calgary walks into your rink and outplays you, as the New York Islanders did Tuesday night at Rogers Place in a convincing 4-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers. It helped them keep pace with the Toronto Maple Leafs, who beat Detroit 3-2 Tuesday.
“We were really good tonight,” admired Islanders winger Anders Lee, who had two goals, one an empty-netter. “All four lines were going pretty well tonight and we were all getting some good cycle shifts. Johnny (Tavares), Bails (Josh Bailey) and I were able to get one to go to take the lead. To be able to do that on the road is huge.”
“They got a power-play goal. We didn’t,” he began. “They chose to block a lot of shots in power-play situations. We didn’t. They scored a blue-paint, playoff type goal. We didn’t — and we had numerous opportunities with open nets and didn’t bear down.
“They scored in an odd-man situation, their third goal. We had numerous odd-man rushes where we got too cute and it led to a number of turnovers,” he concluded. “They did a lot of things they needed to do to get a 4-1 win. We didn’t.”
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With Pittsburgh coming in Friday, followed by the Montreal Canadiens Sunday, this was one of those games the Oilers would have liked to pick up. New York wasn’t playing along, however, after having blown a game in Calgary on Sunday by allowing four goals in the final 5:05 of the first period at the Saddledome.
In the town where their rookie head coach spent nine seasons as an elite centreman, the Islanders won one for the former Oilers captain Doug Weight, who is now 14-6-3 after taking over behind the New York bench from the fired Jack Capuano.
“We were fast,” Weight observed. “We were really good in the neutral zone, bottling up the area and moving our feet, and we had some really good O-zone (time). Tommy (Greiss) was really good between the pipes — he made some really good saves at 1-0 and 2-1.”
Indeed, it was the perfect recipe for a dominant road win, which also included the first goal of young Josh Ho-Sang’s NHL career, a top corner one-timer through traffic on a first period powerplay that gave New York the game’s first goal.
“There are no words to describe it,” Ho-Sang said of his goal, which came in just his fourth NHL game. “It’s such a relief to score and it makes you feel like you belong and things are possible. You know all your dreams are coming true in front of your eyes, which is cool. For me, it was a very special moment.”
On a night when both the Leafs and Philadelphia Flyers beat inferior opponents in the Eastern time zone, this was a gutsy answer by the Islanders, who remain a point ahead of Toronto and in possession of the East’s final wild-card spot.
As for Edmonton, they’ll make the playoffs, but two games into an eight-game run at home they’re 1-1 and looking for more.
“We weren’t terrible,” allowed McLellan. “We created numerous chances. But it was like we were going to get five more of them, and they never arrived. They choked us off.
“You know, you don’t bear down on that one opportunity you get and it may not come for another 10 games. Then you’re in the s—.”
That, we shall see.
