Getting Back on Track vs. The Best in the East

Islanders 3 : Senators 1

No Radek Martinek. No Brendan Witt. No problem.

The defense stood tall over 60 minutes of play despite the absences of their top two defensemen, which could have proved disastrous otherwise, in a 3-1 win over the Senators at the Scotiabank Place in Ottawa. Despite a strong showing and letting only one goal past him, Rick DiPietro (31 saves), aside from nearly scoring a goal but missing the empty net by mere inches, wasn't the biggest factor in the win.

What was? Marc-Andre Bergeron.

Perhaps he could be called the enigma of his team, with his inconsistency and consequential struggles on the PP. But last night, the good MAB showed up and scored two PP goals- one a whack from close in on Martin Gerber (28 svs), the other his trademark blast from the point- to help him team achieve a pointed win against a tough team to beat. Mike Comrie added a goal on an amazing rush that completely stupefied defenseman Wade Redden and found its way past Gerber in the third. After that, it was up to the defense of Freddy Meyer, Bruno Gervais and the like, and some solid saves by DiPietro, to seal the door shut.

Granted, this may have been easier than usual for the Islanders to achieve, seeing as the Senators came onto the ice without All-Star Dany Heatley (who will not be going to Atlanta, having suffered a shoulder separation) and then lost another star, Jason Spezza, early on in the game to the check of Meyer. Daniel Alfredsson was gutsy and effective as usual throughout, but the Isles were keeping up, skating hard and playing well, if a bit boring to watch. They were also able to cajole the Sens to take a few penalties out of frustration- big, versatile defenseman Christoph Schubert, for one, took six minutes in the box over the last two periods of the game. But what struck me as very impressive from the Isles was how they kept even with the Senators, who are still a good team despite Heatley and Spezza's absences. Shots were only 32-31 Senators, and even that doesn't tell the whole story- you'd have to had watched the game to see what I mean. The Isles had a game in hand on three out of the other four teams in the Atlantic Division- Pittsburgh, the Rangers, and the Devils, who don't play until Wednesday night against us at the Rock), and were able to win this one, pulling up within the standings to within one point of the fifth seed in the East. This was also the Isles' first win in Ottawa since March 15, 2003.

With the road trip ending on a high note, the Isles come back home tomorrow to face Montreal (for the TV viewers, this will be on VERSUS, not FSN), another hard-skating team that recently faced an uninspired loss to the Rangers, 4-1. There may be a bit of a stumble here in our first home game after a lengthy road stint, but given a win and also a Rangers win, we can pull even higher in the standings to the 4th and 5th spots.