The Mile High City is not easy to play in. That 5,280 feet above sea level thing is not easy for those who don’t live there. I’ve watched Islanders players gasp and double over during these games and even Ryan Strome in his between period interview said you feel it and have to keep shifts short.
So was it a big surprise that the first Avalanche goal came at only 2:34 of the first period? Chad Johnson is definitely more aggressive than his counterpart, Halak. He’s willing to play the puck and leave the net. But I blinked and McLeod put the puck right over Johnson’s right side.
Ryan Strome had to play defense for a few moments and he didn’t do badly skating backwards. As Butch Goring mentioned, Forwards don’t always skate backwards so they have a hard time. Strome didn’t seem to have that issue.
John Rossiello @JRossiello
@DFriedmanOnNYI and they are constantly paired with 3rd D, cough, Strait cough. It's piss poor game management out of inept Cappy #isles
Justin Shea @justinshea
Here's the 4th line out with 3rd pairing d again. #isles
Matt Scanlan @mtscanlan
4th line and Strait out for an offensive zone face-off after a TV timeout...never change Jack never change #isles
I sense a problem here. And everyone else can see it.
The Isles ended up with a power play opportunity with less than five minutes of the first and John Tavares wasn’t getting much support and the power play gained the Isles nothing. It was okay, because they got another one with only 41 seconds left as John Mitchell tossed a puck over the glass. Certainly, that’s not what he wanted to do.
From his knees, John Tavares had the best opportunity of the period (even though Okposo had a few) as he hit the crossbar with only two seconds left of the period. The Isles would have 1:18 of power play time to begin the second period.
A dripping Ryan Strome spoke with Shannon and it is clear he already knows how to handle the media. “Get pucks deep. Play our game. Keep playing our brand of hockey.” That must be in the Hockey handbook.
Chad Johnson has a different quote book. In his segment he said “Take every day as it is. Don’t look too far ahead. Focus on the moment. That night I’m just worried about winning the hockey game. I just focus on that game at hand.” Very Zen Mr. Johnson
Tavares had another good power play opportunity. It didn’t work.
Calvin deHaan had the first Islander penalty at 1:36 of the second.
With four Islanders laying in Johnson’s net collapsed, MacKinnon shot over the dog pile and get the second Avs goal. Nice going boys.
It happened a second time, but the net dislodged and the whistle blew. Not the best way to defend.
Chad Johnson was out of position and the puck just snuck behind Johnson for his third goal against of the game. A 3-0 Lead for the Avalanche didn’t look good for the Isles at all. All the ground they gains in October was slowly slipping away.
I put my head down to write and the MacKinnon scored beating everyone on the ice.
Isles had another power play opportunity in the second and managed only one shot on net.
Nielsen has an other opportunity and the Isles get a clean sheet of ice and a man advantage to begin the third period. As one power play ended another began as Landeskog hooked Grabovski.
It wasn’t as if the Isles weren’t getting chances to score -- they just weren’t. So was it really a problem that Boychuk was called for interference and the teams skated four on four for 1:32. Nope.
With about ten minutes remaining to the third, the shots on goal were 30 to 19 with the Islanders still without a goal. So many passes just missing their mark and the Avs blocking many of the Isles shots
This is not how the Isles wanted to start this road trip. As I said earlier today, nothing was a given and while the Avs may have struggled, they turned their fortune around with Valarmov in net and the Isles on the ice. The only thing the Isles wanted with the last few minutes left was to ruin Valarmov’s shut-out, or MacKinnon's hat trick.
With 6:20 left, right off a face-off, Erik Johnson scored his second goal of the season and the Avs fifth of the game. It was beyond deflating. How the Isles had managed to let this game get that far away from them was beyond me. At 11:28 pm, there was no need to watch the final minutes of the game or the post game.
It was over. I was done.
New York Islanders Blogger • 
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