Isles Sweep The Rangers In The Regular Season For The First Time Ever, Lose Anders Lee In The Process
Last night was a crazy one.
Between chasing Hank with 3 goals on 16 shots, attempting to sweep the Rangers in the regular season for the first time ever[!], and trying to figure out if it’s even a good thing to win the game, the dreaded injury bug struck again – as Anders Lee left the game after taking a Johnny Boychuk slapshot to the leg.
Lee will join Travis Hamonic, Jaro Halak, Mikhail Grabovski, Cal Clutterbuck, JF Berube and Matt Martin as important pieces of the puzzle currently nursing injuries, only Lee’s seems to be one that will keep him off the ice for the rest of the year.
I’ve been watching hockey long enough to know that at this point in the year every team has their fare share of injuries, but I’m not a fan of every team, so right now the Isles are the dealing with the biggest loss of talent due to injury in the league. Facts.
Lee has been quietly made an big impression by simply parking himself in front of the crease and going to battle, a role this team has need to fill since trading Matt Moulson in what was an iconic highly-criticized move to find John Tavares a winger a few years back. The loss of Lee is sneaky-huge, as this club looks to make it out of the First Round for the first time since ’93 [I was two years old for christ sake] but with bad news [losing the Ders] always comes good news [possibly seeing Dal Colle, Ho-Sang, or Barzal called up for the playoffs].
As for last night’s 4-1 win over the Rangers, once again we see the Isles put together one of their most complete games of the year against the Blueshirts.
Thomas Greiss all but locked up his campaign for the team’s MVP with 36 saves on 37 shots faced. Greiss Almighty started the year as a backup and will most likely finish as the team’s #1 goalie come post-season play, something I don’t think anyone saw coming. Attribute it to his stellar play, attribute it to Jaro going down with a ground injury, but regardless Greiss has earned all praise thrown his away, as his .926 Save% is good enough for 3rd in the league.
With all eyes on the Captain down the stretch, Johnny T picked up his 8th point in just 3 games and has finally been hitting his stride on a consistent basis, only took 77 games, nbd. This is a team that feeds off of JT’s play. When JT’s eatin, we all eatin, when JT’s struggling, we all struggling. So for him to be coming up big at this point in the year is a huge boost of confidence with the playoffs starting in just over a week. His feed to Fransie to make it 3-0 was a pass most players dream about making.
I don’t want to chalk it up entirely to the rivalry because that would be a little too cliche for my liking, but something about playing the Rangers gets this Isles club going, with some of their best hockey coming against their cross-borough rivals. It’s a shame they won’t meet in the 1st round like all of New York was praying for.
The godfather of IslesTwitter, Arthur Staple, said that both Hamonic and Halak have started skating this week, which is obviously good news for the blue and orange. I would expect to see Berube make his return before Jaro, but any combo of Jaro/Berube/Greiss has my undying allegiance because, well, hey its not Poulin/Nabokov.
With a playoff spot secured, and the final two games coming against Buffalo and Philly [both games are Barstool at The Barclays outings] now’s the time to celebrate if you’re a fan, and rest up if you’re a player. Bring me Pittsburgh, bring me Florida, I don’t care who it is at this point. Just bring me the 2nd round.
connor is Barstool Sports’ Chief Greiss Almighty Correspondent