File this one under “O” for “Over thinking.”
In the Islanders’ most important game of the season, with franchise goaltender Rick DiPietro sound of body and mind and ready to go, Ted Nolan went into contortions in order to find the reasons to go instead with backup Wade Dubielewicz for last night’s Coliseum showdown against the Rangers.
Nolan talked before and after the Blueshirts’ methodical 4-1 victory about how Dubielewicz, who had won a 4-3 shootout match at the Garden shootout on Tuesday while DiPietro was mourning his grandmother, had the hot hand and about how many days the No. 1 had been off the ice.
But it was all just white noise coming from a coach who overplayed his hand and seemed to be grasping at straws in order to justify his decision to turn away from the face of the franchise, who has gone 7-2-2 against the Rangers with a 2.07 GAA the last two years.
Dubielewicz was not the goat, but neither was he heroic. DiPietro and his teammates said all the right things before and after the game, but boy, oh boy, it’s difficult not to connect the dots from Nolan’s odd choice to an entirely unacceptable flat-liner of a performance by the 11th-place team.
“When we measure our team against theirs, we know we don’t match up in skill, but not many teams in the league do,” said Billy Guerin. “The way for us to be successful against the Rangers is by outworking them, but we didn’t do that in this game.
“We did on Tuesday. I don’t know. Maybe everybody thought it would be automatic after the other night.”
If the Islanders seem a tattered band, the Rangers appeared as locked-down as they’ve been all season in moving to within four points of the conference lead with 14 games to go off streaks of 8-0-3 and 13-3-3.
“I’d rather be in first place at the end of the season than at the beginning,” said Sean Avery, who scored twice, to give him eight goals in his last 10 games. “Everyone knows you don’t win the Stanley Cup in November or December.”
The Blueshirts were strong on the puck last night, winning many more battles than they lost. The penalty killing was pristine, negating a 51-second early second-period two man-disadvantage on their way to snuffing five-for-five.
The Avery-Brandon Dubinsky-Jaromir Jagr unit controlled the puck down low throughout. Scott Gomez was nifty with the puck again. Nigel Dawes sprung Brendan Shanahan for a breakaway goal just 1:29 into the match. Marc Staal and Dan Girardi were imposing on the blue line.
And Henrik Lundqvist, marginal on Tuesday, was excellent in nets. His poise radiated to his teammates, who seemed in command throughout, even when the Islanders cut the margin to 2-1 in the second.
“For myself, I don’t think I’ve had fewer games good games than I had last year, but maybe there have been more where I could have been better,” said The King. “I understand people have high expectations of me, and that’s good, but sometimes you have to take a look at the whole in order to get a better perspective.”
That was from the Rangers’ No. 1. Last night, the perspective of the Islanders’ No. 1 came from the bench. File that one under, “B,” for Bizarre.
Rangers 4 Islanders 1