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| New York losses first ever game at Coliseum 6-4 (9/27/1972) Billy Harris goal, Glen Sather on defense. |
Kind of looked like 1972 tonight at Barclay's Center.
This team was badly out-skated, outworked, outclassed for the entire sixty minutes with absolutely no clue how to move the puck in transition without Mark Streit to say nothing of how lost it's powerplay looked.
I don't care where the game was played.
The passes were slow, telegraphed, predictable, and the Isles painfully lethargic the entire game. The Devils easily read the play, and dominated from beginning to end. I'm not even sure they played very well or were forced to.
Sure it's preseason, but this is four games now the club has been collectively outplayed for most if not all of the games, even in winning at Newark.
The one thing you don't want to see are weakness that do not seem correctable with the current roster in a preseason. Win/lose not issue at all.
How they are collectively playing as a unit is a very alarming trend.
Last time I saw an Islander team with transition problems like this from defense to offense, it lost 2-0 opening night to the Florida at home in 2011-12, and things went down hill from there.
Now they fly to Nashville on a gameday likely with a different group.
Barclay's Center was not the story tonight, how poorly this team competed at every level for an entire sixty minutes was.