Lighthouse Hockey: Try to fixate on something else.
Mike and Dan welcome back YouTube hockey documentarian Pinholes Graham to discuss his great film on the 2006-07 Islanders season, The Last Days of Bedlam. The 2006-07 Islanders defy belief. From shocking front office upheaval to a roster of mostly mercenaries to two surprise trades to a heroic performance by a relative nobody, that squad […]
about 2 months ago | 2 reads
The Islanders fell to the Boston Bruins for the second time this month and the third time this season, an odd sweep (two regulation losses, one shootout) at the hands of a team that has been up and down and missing its top defenseman. It was an odd game. The Islanders outshot Boston 45-14 (!), […]
about 2 months ago | 4 reads
The Islanders continue their homestand (1-1 thus far, thanks to the shootout) with a Thanksgiving Eve visit from the Bruins, who just lost to the Sharks. The Bruins visited earlier in the month, prevailing in a 4-3 (shootout) shortly before the big road trip that may have turned the Islanders’ season around. Time to take […]
about 2 months ago | 1 read
The Islanders bounced back from a weaker home return performance against the Blues to pull out a shootout win in the double-shutout meeting with the Kraken, but hanging in the background is injury news to two significant players. Alex Romanov was not having a good season thus far, but the 5-6-month prognosis removes any chance […]
2 months ago | 3 reads
Mike and Dan recap a wild, emotional week in which the Islanders cap off an epic road trip in style before struggling to find their game again at home. The gauntlet that seemed like it could sink their season instead saw the Islanders surge into a playoff berth with a tense win in Dallas and […]
2 months ago | 3 reads
If a game takes place on Long Island with no goal and almost no penalties, does it make a sound? The Islanders and Kraken faced off to a stalemate that went all the way to extra-extra time in the shootout before the Isles prevailed for the extra point. It goes down as a 1-0 win […]
2 months ago | 2 reads
The Islanders complete a back-to-back weekend of home matinees when Lane Lambert and the Seattle Kraken visit. Both played yesterday, the Kraken winning in OT in Pittsburgh and the Islanders losing at home to the Blues. Hopefully the Isles can deliver a better show for home fans today. First Islanders Goal picks go here. Islanders […]
2 months ago | 1 read
The Islanders came home from their rousing 6-1 road trip to start a seven-game homestand but could not keep their groove going in a 2-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues. It wasn’t an awful game, just a frustrating one against an opponent that has really struggled but has been inching its way back to […]
2 months ago | 2 reads
For those who went into this Islanders transitional season with low or at least cautiously tempered expectations, the last eight games have been startling, confusing and pretty damn fun. I say eight games, because the 6-1 road trip, which started with some “not great but pulled it off” wins and steamrolled into some “that was […]
2 months ago | 3 reads
The Islanders have turned their traditional season-ending western road trip into…something else entirely. Thoroughly dispatching the Red Wings in Detroit, the Isles finished the seven-game stretch with a 6-1 record that has launched them up the standings. At the quarter pole, they’re suddenly in a non-wild card playoff position and just a couple points off […]
2 months ago | 2 reads
The Islanders finish their long and surprisingly successful road trip tonight in Detroit, back in the Eastern time zone and oh so lose to returning home for a weekend of back-to-back afternoon games. A win tonight would put them in the non-wildcard proper playoff section of the Metro for the moment. Just half a year […]
2 months ago | 0 reads
Tuesday night had a chaotic, disheartening ending to what otherwise should’ve been an uplifting evening as the Isles took four of six points from a run through Vegas, Colorado and Dallas. (Six of eight when you include Utah, no slouches themselves, though that effort was less impressive.) The Isles’ win over the Stars in a […]
2 months ago | 0 reads
When you post on SB Nation, we don’t want you to miss all the conversations and responses that follow. So starting today, whenever a user replies to your comment or to your post on the Feed, you’ll see a notification at the top right corner of the page. And of course, this means that when […]
2 months ago | 0 reads
Well that was one of the most up and down third periods of hockey in a long time. A 1-1, penalty-free game after two periods quickly devolved after Bo Horvat gave the Isles a 2-1 lead, then took a high-sticking double minor that also earned him a misconduct penalty. Kyle Palmieri scored short handed to […]
2 months ago | 1 read
Mike and Dan are in good spirits as the Islanders win four of the first five games of their road trip and show signs of excitement. The seven game gauntlet through several Stanley Cup contenders loomed large on the schedule. But after three electric overtime games, the Islanders were making believers out of many. While […]
2 months ago | 0 reads
How do you get to Texas, the old joke goes: Go south till you smell it, then west till you step in it. The Islanders are in Dallas tonight where they’ll step in it, alright. The Stars are a perennial contender off to another great start, 12-4-3, and of course the Isles lost both games […]
2 months ago | 0 reads
With the Islanders riding a three-game overtime win streak, if you were expecting a back-to-earth reality check against the league-leading Avalanche in Colorado, that’s not exactly what they received. Though the Isles lost, 4-1, the game was close until the end — an empty netter plus a garbage-time deflection goal by Brock Nelson inflated the […]
2 months ago | 0 reads
The Islanders are riding a 4-0 start to a seven-game stretch away from home that includes three consecutive overtime wins, which is both inspiring and classic “that’s the luck of the draw” kind of muddied reflection of where they are. The East is a mashup of meh-ness but the Islanders now find themselves in wild […]
2 months ago | 0 reads
Hey all, good to be back writing recaps! I spent the early part of the season in Tokyo, so the disastrous 0-3 start to the season happened in the early morning for me. It’s a weird experience to get notifications on Islanders goals while eating breakfast. But like I said, good to be back, and […]
2 months ago | 2 reads
If you didn’t stay up late last night, you missed quite the stirring against-script conclusion. Shorthanded in OT, having blown a 2-0 lead and then scored a late 6-on-5 goal just to make it to extra time, the Isles pulled off another one on the back of Ilya Sorokin and a tremendous individual play by […]
2 months ago | 3 reads
Joined again by their friend Sab, Mike and Dan remember Josef Vašíček, the big, versatile, likeable center who left us far too early in the Lokomotiv airplane disaster. Vašíček only spent one season on Long Island, but he made a lot of fans in that short time, bringing goals and a big smile to a […]
2 months ago | 2 reads
The Islanders pulled off multiple stunning escapes to take both points in Las Vegas, capped by J-G Pageau’s dramatic shorthanded solo effort to win the game in overtime, 4-3. Twice when things looked set for a loss, the Isles flipped the script, including Mat Barzal tying it with 2:37 left in regulation after his team […]
2 months ago | 3 reads
The Islanders’ seven-game road trip really gets down to business tonight with the opening of a back-to-back at Vegas and then Utah. Sorry for the mid-week gap in posts — I had something planned about the crater in the fourth line but an ill-timed broadband outage scrapped that. Dan and Mike touched on it in […]
2 months ago | 4 reads
The Islanders at the as-yet-undefeated-at-home Devils right where they wanted them: Having killed off a fourth Devils power play late in a tied game, the Isles finally got a power play of their own, and after a middling start, Kyle Palmieri cashed in for the would-be winner. But after missing several empty net tries and […]
2 months ago | 3 reads
Mike and Dan recap a week of great, bad and ugly as the Islanders follow-up a no-show performance at home with a hilarious win on the road. The week started with an eventful, entertaining game against the Bruins that didn’t go the Islanders’ way, and also included some social media drama. All of that was […]
2 months ago | 9 reads