First Period
It’s a good thing all these fans showed up tonight. Although it appears the team has failed to show up themselves. This team loves to take two steps forward and the two immediate steps back.
DiPetro got caught playing the puck on the first goal, and was screened by a teammate on the second minutes later. They keep getting hemmed in their own zone. They have also taken a few penalties. On their own powerplay, the managed one shot and no real pressure.
Pens are also out shooting the Isles – no surprise being they can’t get out of their own end.
Hopefully they find their game in the locker room.
Second period
Nolan must have said something good, because the team came out with passion and look completely different than they did in the first period.
Rob Scuderi takes a penalty and Richard Park scores his first power play goal as an Islander. Vasicek gets a nice a pass and plays catch with Satan then beats Dany Sabourin to tie the game. They found their inner hockey souls between periods and its a game again!
Witt and Crosby exchange cross checks behind the net and the Islanders wind up down a man, 2 penalties for the Isles and one for the Pens – when are the officials going to call a fair game in this league?
Penguins score on the Power Play – naturally. 3-2 Pens
Third Period
Pretty uneventful third period, lots of back and forth action with Sabourin making some great saves. With 6 minutes left, I left my seats and headed down to the blog box.
As I get to the Blog Box – a match penalty is announced and Simon gets ejected. Unfortunately, I missed what happened. So with about 6 minutes left, the Islanders are again put in a position late in the game killing a 5 minute penalty (Rewind to the stick swinging incident last year against the Rangers).
Now that I am home, apparently Simon was:
trying to stomp on Jarkko Ruutu’s foot with just under six minutes left. -Associated Press
The Islanders killed off the penalty and even had a few chances. Mike Sillinger went in alone and the puck rolled at the last second and he put it over the net. Mike was asked about the play and this was his response:
We got in while they were changing, I got in behind their D and I made the move I wanted – I kinda waited him out a little bit. I wanted to go upstairs and the puck rolled a bit at the last second and I shot over the net. You know the ice is kinda bad and obviously I elected to shoot because the ice is bad. When I waited for a second and pulled it back, thats when it rolled. Those things happen I guess.
Sillinger was also asked about the match penalty on Simon:
I didn’t see the replay, obviously the refs called what they called but I will have to look at the replay and see what the deal is with that. You know we’ve got 6 minutes left and we’re trying to fight and get back in the game and I think he faked it a bit as well, but again I didn’t see what happened.
What I have learned about Sillinger in my time blogging in the Blog Box – he is the goto guy for comments. I love listening to him answer a question because there is never anything he cannot answer. He is one of the most veteran voices in the room and between Witt and Guerin – they always have an answer because they’ve been there and done that. I could tell though that he really didn’t want to address whatever Simon had done – for obvious reasons.
Well, it appears this latest Simon incident will be reviewed by the league due to the “intent to injure” nature of the offense. I don’t condone these type of actions and I really don’t even know why he would go and do that when the team is fighting to tie the game. I guess we will find out if he receives any amount of suspension for this.
All requests to speak to Simon, were turned down by the Islanders organization and I imagine that a press release will be issued when there will be an official explanation.
For those who have not seen the incident, you must see this for yourself:
