Leddy leads the way in sloppy victory over Senators

The New York Islanders’ strange schedule continued on Friday night, as they headed off to Ottawa after a brief stint home against the Arizona Coyotes.  Both teams came out flying with the Senators scoring the first goal.  However, the Isles answered back immediately and never relented the big lead they compiled.

Nick Leddy scored his first goal of the season on a beautiful rush where he eluded four Senators and tucked one past Sens’ goaltender Anders Nilsson.  Leddy followed that up with a goal on a penalty shot, one that was called after he was tripped going to the net again.

Things started to get very chippy in the second period.  Leddy thought he had his first career hat trick but the puck wound up clipping Matt Martin on the way in.  Just a minute and a half later, Mat Barzal drove to the net then dropped off a perfect pass to Derick Brassard, who buried the shot and essentially put the game out of reach.  Ottawa was clearly frustrated and tried to fight the Islanders multiple times in the second period.

The Islanders’ bench looked barren for most of the second period because at one point they only had eight forwards.  Barry Trotz implemented an 11 forward, seven defensemen lineup, with Noah Dobson in as the seventh D-man.  Tom Kuhnhackl slipped awkwardly into the boards, Matt Martin’s knee was slammed into an open Ottawa bench door and Cal Clutterbuck served a 10 minute misconduct for defending Martin after he had gone down.

The officiating was horrific, as the Islanders somehow only scrounged three Power Plays in an extremely chippy game.  Ottawa had six chances but only capitalized on one, a late PPG by Tyler Ennis.  The Senators pushed most of the third period but the Islanders were able to keep them at bay.  Unfortunately for the Isles, the win came with a price and even Thomas Greiss got into a mini-scrap at the end of the game.

A win is a win and the Islanders now have won six straight games.  Their next game is at home against the Philadelphia Flyers.  If the Islanders can stretch that winning streak to seven, it’ll be their longest winning streak in two decades.  The Isles have a lot of injuries to deal with, but they keep chugging along.