The Islanders finally proved they can take a punch, but ultimately could not deliver the knockout blow.
After surrendering a two-goal lead against the Flyers last night at Nassau Coliseum, the Islanders failed to convert on a power-play in overtime and lost their third straight game shortly after, 4-3, as Danny Briere fired his second goal of the game past the glove of Rick DiPietro.
“There’s a lot of positives and I think we played a solid game overall,” right wing P.A. Parenteau said. “We’ve got to build on what we did tonight. We didn’t capitalize on the 4-on-3 and that’s on us, but the guys were committed. Everybody was competing, which was a little bit of an issue the last two games.”
Trailing 3-1 after the first period, the Flyers replaced goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov with Sergei Bobrovsky, who saved all 23 shots he faced. Unable to score on two breakaways from Matt Moulson and John Tavares 20 seconds apart in the second period, as well as a Steve Staios wrist shot saved by the butt of Bobrovsky’s stick, the Islanders gave up the lead with 5:42 left in the third period.
Flyers defenseman Braydon Coburn fired the puck off the side boards, which bounced high off the glass behind the Islanders net and slid right in front of the crease. DiPietro swatted his glove to retrieve it, only grazing it, as Briere scooped it up and scored top shelf.
“A couple bad bounces, I don’t even know what to say,” DiPietro said. “It came out funny, went right to his stick and he didn’t make a mistake with it.”
After dropping their previous two games by a combined 11-0, the Islanders were tested right away. As fans were still finding their seats, 18 seconds into the game, Andrej Meszaros was firing a shot over the shoulder of DiPietro.
The crowd unleashed a collective moan of disbelief, they knew was all too believable. But, the heads didn’t hang. The shoulders didn’t slump. For a team that had been handling deficits about as well as the federal government, the Islanders answered 19 seconds later on Kyle Okposo’s first goal of the season.
Okposo, who connected on the one-timer from a Michael Grabner pass behind the net, finished the night with two goals and one assist and was aggressive at both ends, perhaps emerging from the season-long abyss that caused his three healthy scratches last week. Grabner finished with one goal and two assists.
“It was big for confidence,” Okposo said of his first goal. “It was nice to get that one. We just have to work on closing it out. We played a good, hard hockey game tonight. It’s just unfortunate we didn’t come up with the extra point.”
* With only six healthy defensemen, forwards Brian Rolston, Marty Reasoner and Nino Niederreiter were scratched last night.