“Dominating” and “Islanders” are two words that have become rather unfamiliar together.
But yesterday at the Coliseum, the Islanders dominated the Panthers, winning the Presidents’ Day matinee, 5-1.
Matt Moulson had his second career hat trick and, thanks in part to his seven goals in his past six games, his team has surged back into the playoff conversation with six wins in its past seven.
“My linemates made great plays,” Moulson said of his two first-period goals. “The first one, [John Tavares] battled and made the pass and [P.A. Parenteau] made a great play on the second one, so I didn’t have to do too much.”
Moulson completed the hat trick and his team-leading 26th goal with an empty-netter after Panthers coach Peter DeBoer pulled Tomas Vokoun down 4-1 with three minutes left.
“I had three kind of easy ones,” said Moulson, with his team now 11 points behind the Hurricanes for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Starting in goal for the second straight game was Al Montoya, who made 21 saves and had a pretty easy afternoon. After getting a shutout on Saturday in his first start as an Islander — after being acquired last week from the Coyotes for a sixth-round pick –Montoya went 137:46 without giving up a goal. The streak came to an end yesterday when Florida’s Mike Santorelli scored on a power play in the third period.
“We rolled and came out right out of the gate,” said Montoya, whose team outshot the Panthers 16-3 in the first period and gave up very few good scoring opportunities throughout the game. “It kind of made it easy on me.”
Making it easy was the fact the Islanders have scored three or more goals in eight straight games, their longest such run since 1994. They are also the only team in the league with three players who have 23 or more goals (Moulson, 26; Tavares, 23; and Michael Grabner, 25).
“They’re working hard and they believe in what we’re trying to teach,” said interim head coach Jack Capuano, who is 19-20-4 since taking over for Scott Gordon Nov. 15 and making a strong case to GM Garth Snow to drop his “interim” tag.
“There is a lot of belief and camaraderie in that room, and the guys are having fun doing the right things.”
The second period opened with a power play goal by Radek Martinek, just his second goal of the season. It was extra sweet for Martinek because the Islanders were on the man-advantage as a result of him taking an elbow to the head from Stephen Weiss, who was assessed a five-minute major and a game misconduct. Josh Bailey added his ninth of the year six minutes later to make it 4-0.
“I’m just so happy with the way we’re playing,” said Martinek. “It just seems like everything is so easy.”