Teams in 30th should not be this competitive

New York Islander Fan Central | 2/13/2009 10:00:00 AM |
I look at these games and I keep wondering how the New York Islanders can be a 30th place team in this league.

30th place clubs lose 5-1, 6-1 or worse on a regular basis and over the course of a full season all clubs have blowout losses sooner or later. I look through these games and know what happened because I watched them, wrote about them and read/posted the articles from both sides.

I will post a * next to the games I thought were blowouts/poor efforts. I know many of these games Islanders were outshot/outplayed but again teams in 30th are supposed to lose games big or not play competitive.

+ Denotes an empty net goal in a loss.

I came up with three games.

+Nov 26 vs Pittsburgh L 3-5-The game they led 3-1 entering third.
Nov 28 at Boston L 2-7-The game tied 2-2 with thirteen minutes left.
Nov 29 vs Ottawa W 4-2
Dec 4 at Washington L 2-5-This was a close game until the third.
*Dec 6 vs Atlanta L 1-5-Scott Gordon praised the Isles work, not me.
Dec 8 at Toronto L 2-4
Dec 9 at Philadelphia L 3-4
*Dec 11 at Pittsburgh L 2-9
Dec 13 at Columbus L 1-3
Dec 16 vs Washington OTL 4-5
*Dec 19 at Minnesota L 1-4
Dec 20 at Nashville L 0-1
+Dec 23 vs Atlanta L 2-4
Dec 26 vs Toronto W 4-1
Dec 27 at Buffalo OTL 3-4
Dec 29 at NY Rangers L 4-5
Dec 31 vs Florida W 4-2
Jan 2 at Phoenix L 4-5
+Jan 3 at San Jose L 3-5
Jan 5 at Edmonton L 2-3
*Jan 8 at Calgary L 2-5-Calgary media praised the Islanders work.
Jan 13 vs NY Rangers L 1-2
Jan 15 vs Boston L 1-2
Jan 17 vs New Jersey L 1-3-Dominated in play but close game.
Jan 19 vs Washington OTL 1-2
Jan 21 vs Anaheim W 2-1
Jan 29 at Atlanta W 5-4
Jan 31 vs Florida W 3-1
Feb 3 vs Tampa Bay W 3-1
Feb 5 at Florida L 2-3
Feb 7 at Tampa Bay L 0-1
Feb 10 vs Los Angeles OTL 3-4
+Feb 11 at New Jersey L 2-4

Four games I would say they were not in, only one terrible blowout loss in Pittsburgh, the other three goal losses.

Check out the differences between this and 72-73 game results here or
even the 2000 club here.

Just cannot see how a team that had so few poor efforts since their season went into a free fall and lost to this degree.

It borders on absurd a team in so many close games can be fifteen games under five hundred.



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