John Tavares and the New York Islanders now have to figure out a way to keep a good thing going on the road. Tavares had a hat trick and his second career five-point game to lead the Islanders to a 7-3 rout of the Dallas Stars at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Monday. The Islanders have won four of their past five games and are 7-4-2 since snapping their 10-game winless streak on Dec. 10. However, the Islanders will play their next six games away from the Coliseum, starting Tuesday at Air Canada Centre against the Toronto Maple Leafs, who have been idle since their 7-1 loss to the New York Rangers on Saturday.
"It's just something to build on,"
Tavares said. "We're going to have a tough test [Tuesday], a
team that is looking to bounce back after a few days off. We know
we're going to have to be ready to play and we can't just dwell on
this one and think it's going to be easy. We have to come with the
right intensity, a great work ethic and play a smart road game. We
have to be at the top of our game."
The Islanders were Monday after falling behind 2-0
in the first period on a goal by Jamie
Benn off a turnover in front of the net and a seeing-eye shot
through traffic by Erik
Cole. New York responded by scoring four goals in the second
period. It was the first time the Islanders scored that many times in
a period since Jan. 24, 2013, and the first time they did it at home
since Nov. 19, 2011. Brian
Strait made it 5-3 with his second goal of the season 84 seconds
into the third period and Tavares capped the scoring with two more
power-play goals to complete his hat trick. His previous five-point
game came in his rookie season on March 16, 2010. He had four points
on two goals and two assists Dec. 31 against the Boston Bruins.
"He's unbelievable," said
Islanders rookie Ryan
Strome, who got New York on the board Monday with his first NHL
goal. "He puts the team on his back. I think the third period
you really saw how good he wanted be. He wanted that hat trick and it
shows how dominating he can be. If I can learn one thing out of the
100 things he does it's going to make me successful."
Strome, Peter
Regin, Tavares and Brock
Nelson scored in the second period. Nelson's goal, his fourth of
the season, was the game-winner. The Islanders were 3-for-6 on the
power play and outshot the Stars 43-23. Dallas goalie Kari
Lehtonen made 36 saves.
Stars coach Lindy Ruff called the loss
"embarrassing." "That's probably the most
disappointing [game] of the whole year. We were outskated. We
couldn't win 1-on-1 battles. They basically looked how we usually
look. Their legs were better. Their energy level was better. Their
puck management was better. That might have been our worst game of
the year. It was a team giveaway."
There was some bad news for New York; starting
goalie Evgeni
Nabokov had to leave the game with a lower-body injury with 7:06
left in the first period. Nabokov did not return and Islanders coach
Jack Capuano said he did not have an update on the goalie after the
game. He also wasn't sure if Nabokov would be traveling to Toronto
with the club. Nabokov was placed on injured reserve and the
Islanders recalled Anders
Nilsson of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers on an emergency loan.
Kevin Poulin
came in and gave up a goal on the first shot he faced, but settled in
and made 13 saves.
"I thought he responded really well,"
Capuano said.
The Stars, on the other hand, did not despite
getting defensemen Sergei
Gonchar and Trevor
Daley back in the lineup. Gonchar missed the past six games with
a concussion and Daley missed 14 in a row with an ankle injury.
Dallas had a 2-0 lead after the first period, but was outshot 14-10
and lost 11 of 19 faceoffs. The Islanders felt good about the way
they played in the first period and were able to haunt the Stars in
the second by ramping up their intensity and getting goals from
Strome, Tavares and Regin within the first 9:29 to take a 3-2 lead.
Dallas rookie Valeri
Nichushkin tied the game with a power-play goal at 15:28, but the
Stars had no answer for Nelson's rush up the ice that led to his
game-winning goal. He knifed through the neutral zone with speed, cut
to the middle, made a move on Alex
Goligoski to get some room and fired a quick, blocker-side shot
from between the hash marks that beat Lehtonen with 28 seconds left
in the period.
"For me it started in the second period
with the one-on-one battles, the 50-50 pucks; we didn't win those
battles," Ruff said. "I think the thing that I
noticed was Daley looked the freshest of everybody and he's the guy
who hasn't been playing. You factor where our team has been at with
sickness and everything, and maybe we need a couple of days to
recover because there hasn't been a game where we looked this slow,
moved the puck and not been able to catch guys from behind."
The Islanders had everybody contributing; 12 of
their 18 skaters finished with at least one point and 17 had at least
one shot on goal. The only player not to register a shot was Calvin
de Haan, but he had two assists. New York won 63 percent of the
faceoffs (45 for 72) and forced the Stars into 15 credited giveaways.
"Everybody fed off the energy, every
line," Tavares said. "That's what makes for a
successful team. We need to carry that over."
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