Nielsen lets NHL punish Briere
Philadelphia's Dan Carcillo, rear, looks on as Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro and Flyers captain Mike Richards go face-to-face in the last minute of an Islanders loss in Philadelphia. (Oct. 30, 2010) Credit: AP
About the only good news for the Islanders to come out of Saturday's 6-1 loss in Philadelphia is that Frans Nielsen, the team's best defensive forward, had only a sore ear following the game after the Flyers' Daniel Briere crosschecked Nielsen in the head in the final minute.
Briere was hit with a three-game suspension by the NHL Monday, meaning he'll miss Saturday's rematch between the Islanders and Flyers at Nassau Coliseum. Nielsen doesn't much care for revenge, so he's indifferent to whether Briere would be in the lineup.
"We need to win some games," Nielsen said after the Islanders practiced at IceWorks in Syosset. "We can't worry about all the other stuff."
In the midst of a four-game losing streak, the Islanders do have more on which to focus than getting a chance to get some shots in at Briere on Saturday - such as getting their five-on-five play in order. The Islanders have scored 13 goals five-on-five and have allowed 24 through 11 games, and the slowing down of their power play has turned the offense stale, with one goal in each of the last two games.
"We've actually generated more scoring chances five-on-five the last three games than we did when we were winning three in a row," coach Scott Gordon said. "But we're not converting them, obviously. We've missed the net a lot. Against Montreal [a 3-1 loss Thursday], we had 30 shots on goal, but we missed the net on eight of our quality chances."
On Saturday, the Islanders outshot the Flyers 31-29, but rookie Flyers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky outplayed Rick DiPietro and the game got out of hand, culminating in Briere's crosscheck to Nielsen's head right after a faceoff with the Flyers up by five goals.
"I don't think I said anything that would make him do that," Nielsen said. "He was getting frustrated about some things he thought we were doing and I told him he was doing some things, too, then I went in hard on the faceoff. Maybe he didn't like that."
Gordon pointed out that Briere crosschecked Trevor Gillies during a second-period scrum, then crosschecked Trent Hunter after a clean hit. "One [game] for each crosscheck," Gordon said of the suspension.
But before the Flyers come to the Coliseum, the Islanders have games in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday and Ottawa on Thursday to start straightening out their issues.
"We haven't been competing hard enough, we haven't been ready for the other teams when they come out hard," Nielsen said. "We were on a pretty good run before we started losing, so we know we can get back there."
Notes & quotes: The Islanders waived Jon Sim to make room for Rob Schremp (back), who practiced Monday and is planning to make his season debut Wednesday against the Hurricanes. Michael Grabner (groin) is also slated to return against Carolina.
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