Isles 4
Bruins 1
Everything was in working order for the Coliseum opener. Everything except for the Islanders’ franchise goalie, that is.
But don’t worry. Rick DiPietro, who missed last night’s 4-1 win against Boston with a groin strain, will have 14 more home openers to dress for before his contract expires. DiPietro said he hurt his groin in the season opener at Phoenix, played through it, and was replaced in nets last night by Mike Dunham, who is undefeated as an Islander with two consecutive wins under his belt. Dunham, signed to a one-year deal after training camp, made 31 saves, 17 in the first period.
“Mike’s been a really calming influence,” Ted Nolan said.
Dunham was spectacular in keeping the game close in the first period, when the Isles spent eight of the game’s first 15 minutes on the penalty kill, the team looking very much like last season’s heavily penalized bunch. But once they got their feet moving and kept their sticks down, the Islanders dictated the pace for the game’s final 40 minutes and were whistled for one call in the final two periods.
They overcame an early 1-0 lead attributed to their penalty-box parade and buried a tired Boston team that has lost three in a row.
Mike Sillinger scored his first as an Islander midway through the second period. Jason Blake scored his first two goals of the season, and Miro Satan racked up two assists in a total awakening of the Isles’ offensive gunners. Tom Poti’s backdoor crash made it 4-1 early in the third period.
The Isles – all of them, really – played smart enough, hard enough and tough enough that not even Alexei Yashin heard a bad word from the home crowd all night.
“The one thing we want to build here is a very competitive environment where people really enjoy the product,” Nolan said. “Tonight the fans were pretty good behind us. The one thing we want to do is to gain their respect and gain their loyalty.”
Last night they got it, for one night at least. Yashin (seven shots) was solid at both ends; Trent Hunter (10 hits) was a human wrecking machine who found many of his best scoring opportunities with the Isles a man down.
With the win, the Islanders improved to 22-10-1-1 in home openers, and didn’t look half bad. The Islanders stood up for each other in just about every tangle, played soundly in their own zone, and got tougher as the game unfolded.
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Last night was the first time since 1999 the Islanders failed to sell out the home opener, coming about 2,000 short of a capacity crowd. . . . DiPietro is listed as day-to-day and likely will not skate until Monday at the earliest.