Community Picks: Columbus Blue Jackets 0% vs New York Islanders 0%

Plenty of NHL teams would kill to have centers like Mathew Barzal or John Tavares on their roster, particularly when they carry a combined cap hit under $6.5 million. It would be convenient if you could just blame everything on their goalies Jaroslav Halak and Thomas Greiss, and there’s no denying that they are part of the problem. Halak’s numbers are mediocre (.908 save percentage) while Greiss has been abysmal (.885 save percentage, which is almost unthinkable for a well-paid goalie in 2017-18). Continue to Article

February 12, 2018 5:29:pm EST

The Islanders pulled off an impressive comeback last night fueled by a match penalty that resulted in four power-play goals.  I’ll go into that a bit more in the game-by-game report below, but I wanted to highlight Mathew Barzal specifically in this introduction. Barzal now has 16 goals and 58 points in 56 contests while the next best rookie, Brock Boeser, is sitting at 47 points.  It’s fair to say that Barzal is running away with this season’s Calder Trophy at this rate.  Barzal’s 1.04 points-per-game also puts him in fifth place among rookies dating back to the start of the salary cap era (min. 10 games played).  The only players who have done better are Alex Ovechkin (1.31 PPG), Sidney Crosby (1.26), Evgeni Malkin (1.09), and Connor McDavid (1.07).  That’s pretty nice company to have. Continue to Article

February 10, 2018 1:19:am EST

Players of the Night: Islanders who factored most into that wild win. Do you go with the guy who collected a hat trick with the overtime game-winner, or the rookie who generated five assists for yet another five-point night? Nelson’s the fellow Continue to Article

February 10, 2018 1:04:am EST