No letup for Greiss, Islanders
THE ISLANDERS have posted 112 victories over the Rangers in their history, but they only have won the game immediately following those emotional contests about a third of the time.
The typical hangover from Wednesday’s riveting shootout win over the Blueshirts appeared in effect at the start Friday night, until the Isles awoke in the third period and forced overtime before pulling out their second straight shootout decision, 2-1, over St. Louis before 12,873 at Barclays Center.
“I don’t think we played our best tonight,” Kyle Okposo said. “They didn’t give us much room out there, but we came out with a win.
“I didn’t think we had our best jump, but that makes it a huge two points.”
Frans Nielsen and Okposo scored in the shootout for the Isles, who are now 3754-21 in their history in their next game after a win over the Rangers.
Backup goalie Thomas Greiss continued to provide a strong 1-2 tandem with starter Jaroslav Halak, stopping 31 shots through 65 minutes — and both he faced in the penalty-shot tiebreaker — as the surging Isles extended their streak without a regulation loss to six games (5-0-1).
“They came out hot,” Greiss said, “but I thought we came back and played some great hockey. The team played well in front of me and battled hard until the end.”
The Isles (15-8-4) couldn’t build much of an attack through two periods against Brian Elliott, the Blues’ backup goalie who was making his first start since Nov. 17.
Trailing 1-0 on Kevin Shattenkirk’s one-timer from the top of the left circle late in the first, the Isles finally managed the equalizer on a pretty goal with 13:21 remaining in regulation.
Mikhail Grabovski collected a give-and-go feed from Ryan Strome and scooped a rebound of his own shot past Elliott for his fifth of the season to enliven what had been a mostly dormant crowd. Greiss denied Shattenkirk and Vladimir Tarasenko in the shootout to improve to 8-3-2 with a 2.18 GAA in 13 appearances.
Halak defeated the Rangers, 2-1, in Wednesday’s shootout to lower his goalsagainst to 1.93, second in the NHL. He likely will start the second of back-to-back games on Saturday night in Ottawa.
“You expect our goalies to give us a chance,” Isles coach Jack Capuano said. “Greiss has played great, Jaro’s played great. Both our guys have given us a chance, no question about it. Two guys who work extremely hard…and it’s a good 1-2 punch we have right now.”