Tavares Best Game Ever in New York Win at Philadelphia. Defensive Chemistry?

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None of this changes the big picture at this time, which would be the standings, however tonight was special and not because they finally beat a team they could have easily been 3-0 against this season.

Without Sergei Bobrovsky's outstanding goaltending it could easily have been 7/8-1.

John Tavares and this teams defense was simply that good.

The 4-1 final score/shots against will not reflect how dominating John Tavares was against the Philadelphia Flyers, nor will it reflect how much better this team is on defense with Steve Staios/Mike Mottau's lack of speed not in this lineup.

Nabokov was given the third star with forty statistical saves where he was solid, however not required to be great. Tavares got first star to give folks an idea how the game played out.

Even including the five point game in Vancouver, tonight was Tavares best career game.

Tavares almost created breakaways or was going around players one on one almost every other shift, he forced the Flyers to take penalties, or finally the Isles made them pay as quickly as they converted the goal to give them breathing room in Washington.

The shots against will make it seem Nabokov was under huge pressure, many Flyer shots came from bad angles or in the third when Philadelphia pressured. Like the Caps game this defense is much quicker and able to skate in the defensive zone with Reese in and Staios out, and keep the other team to angles. They can compete for pucks in the corners which creates transition with speed the last two games that looked very similar to the second half of last season.

Dylan Reese even had to fight because the Flyers were getting frustrated, he more than held his own and got the take-down.

It was effective, New York outworked Philadelphia, had the better chances and like in Washington were the better team and earned the two points.

Martin's shorthanded play sprung Bailey for a top-shelf goal. Tavares work fed Moulson to open the scoring after one was correctly disallowed in the first on a kick.

These last two games were fun to watch, it did not look like off nights for the other team, but the New York Islanders outworking the opposition and taking two points.

The last two games were impressive for the first time this season, it was not about a bad game for the opposition or it's goaltender.

A lot of twitter comments during game.
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Sadly, Radek Martinek has been shut down for the season by the Columbus Blue Jackets with post-concussion syndrome.

Ct Post: Mr Fornabio reports Jeremy Colliton is getting close to returning to a Bridgeport team on a seven game winning streak.