New York Sweeps Pittsburgh: Bailey Five Points

New York Islander Fan Central | 3/29/2012 10:25:00 PM | | |
When a team losses it's first back to games since Jan 10th-11th they are doing everything right, when another team beats them twice in a row this says something very positive about them.

You know it's a sign of something good when Steve Staios is breaking in shorthanded.

All kidding aside, New York was the better team, had the extra step, outworked the Pens, and earned their sweep of the home and home.

They have had success at home vs Pittsburgh before this season.

Not sure what to make of Bailey but a remarkable night to register five points. Of course for this blog he should play his natural position of center. The concept of him being a winger has been tried many times without success, but that's not for today.

Congratulations to Josh Bailey.

Nielsen-Okposo played with Grabner the entire second half of last season.

Congratulations to Kyle Okposo for a new career high in goals. 

That was an incredible effort by Pandolfo short-handed to get the puck to Bailey. 

When a dominating team hits the wall like Pittsburgh has, they are going to lose some games, and make some mistakes trying to do more, despite this they still almost came all the way back.

The Pens short-handed play was good, despite the goal they allowed off their defense.

Montoya's surprising me a little, he looked unplayable for a long time (even before injuries) but now he seems to have settled down which does not happen in a vacuum.

The shift Reasoner came off the bench and scored his first, like in Florida the team had a dominating shift, you could see the Isles were beating the Pens to the net.. Okposo found the quality spot, the first line did not finish but generated chances, Grabner, Niederreiter and Martin had chances.

Streit is just playing like he was told go play offense for a while now, he got caught in Pittsburgh when someone did not cover well, but he has to do it.

Isles took some big hits to clear some pucks on defense.

Overall this suggests nothing new, the Isles have been a team between five hundred and six under the entire season. This is no carryover to next season if there is one.  

Now we see what happens with Bridgeport, who need Ullstrom (plus Cizikas) and what happens when Boston/Ottawa visit over the weekend. 

Those teams have not hit the wall the Pens have, they will be much tougher.

For this day congratulations to the New York Islanders. 

Lottery Watch:
New York is five points clear of the 27th place team. Toronto is playing the kind of hockey where they may well not win another game, anything can happen. 

Beating Winnipeg/Columbus or even better having success against Boston/Ottawa/New Jersey could place the Isles around the 8th or 9th team from 30th spot.