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Islanders hand Senators third straight loss

Nov 14, 2008 - 5:22 AM OTTAWA (Ticker) -- The New York Islanders not only held on to a lead heading into the third period for a change, they built on it.

Trent Hunter snapped a tie late in the second period and captain Bill Guerin added a goal in the third as the Islanders on Thursday halted a three-game skid with a 3-1 triumph over the Ottawa Senators in the first game of a home-and-home series.

Rookie Kyle Okposo also scored and Joey MacDonald made 29 saves for the Islanders, who improved to 3-7-2 in their last 12 games.

"We had a solid team outing, and other than the penalty trouble, I thought we were in command for much of the game," New York coach Scott Gordon said. "We came out and set the tone early. Unfortunately, they got the first (goal), but we bounced back."

The ninth overall pick in this past June's draft, Josh Bailey recorded his first career point with an assist for New York, which won for just the seventh time in 30 visits to Ottawa.

Defenseman Filip Kuba tallied for the Senators, who have scored a total of two goals during their current three-game slide.

"Five-on-5, we're struggling to create quality chances, but it's just not happening for us right now," Ottawa's Mike Fisher said. "We've got to stick to our plan and do what we know we can do. We know we'll get it turned around. The goals are going to come."

The teams meet again at Nassau Coliseum on Saturday.

"We've got to learn something from this game tonight and be ready to start strong against them on Saturday," Fisher said. "We can't get frustrated and hang our heads. We've got to regroup and come back at them."

The Islanders, who had squandered third-period leads in four of their previous six contests, set themselves up for another heartbreak in this one. With the game even at 1-1, New York took advantage of a holding penalty on Jason Spezza late in the middle session to surge ahead.

"We had four of (six) games recently where we played 40 good minutes," Gordon said. "But tonight was definitely a full 60."

"We've had the lead in five out of the last six games, and four of them were two-goal leads," New York's Doug Weight said. "But tonight, we hung on despite making it tough on ourselves with penalty trouble."

Antoine Vermette won a faceoff in the right circle of the Senators' zone, drawing the puck back toward a defenseman. Before Kuba could control the carom off the end boards, Hunter whacked his stick and gained possession before backhanding the puck past goaltender Alex Auld with 2 1/2 minutes remaining in the second for his seventh goal of the season and a 2-1 lead.

Seemingly having the Islanders right where they wanted them, the Senators gained a 16-5 advantage in shots in the third session. But the only one that entered the net came off the stick of Guerin, giving New York a two-goal bulge.

"We've been through some tough third periods lately, and I think we thought to ourselves, 'Let's just play,'" Guerin said. "We've blown enough leads that we just wanted to relax because stressing about it certainly doesn't help us. We wanted to play with confidence and just do what we can do."

"They had eight or nine minutes of power-play time in the third, and they can throw a lot at you, so having that two-goal lead was big for us," MacDonald said. "Last week, we had a couple of bad third periods. We could've been 3-1 or even 4-0, but tonight we came out and played the full 60 minutes and we won."

After receiving a cross-slot pass from the right circle by Sean Bergenheim, Weight dished to Guerin, who tapped the puck in while standing in the crease at 2:31 for his sixth tally.

"I just tried to be patient, and I knew Billy would be waiting in front," Weight said. "He knows I'm going to try to get him the puck, so he didn't come running over for a rebound. It was a big goal for us at the time because it gave us a little breathing room."

"That's pretty much my range," Guerin said. "I've got to go to the crease like that and get those kinds of goals. Dougie has always been capable of making nifty little plays like that, and that makes it easy. It's nice to get those, and the timing of that one was big for us."

Ottawa's Dany Heatley knew it would be difficult for his team to rally from the deficit considering their offensive struggles.

"We put ourselves in a 3-1 hole, and that's tough to dig out from when pucks aren't going in the net for us the way they should be," he said.

The Senators, who fell to 3-5-1 at home, opened the scoring less than two minutes into the game. While on the power play, Kuba unleashed a one-timer from the top of the slot that sneaked inside the right goalpost at 1:53 for his first of the campaign.

"We knew they were going to try to come out hard," Guerin said. "We got down one, but we knew it was just one goal and there was lots of hockey left."

New York pulled even during a man advantage midway through the first. After Auld stopped defenseman Chris Campoli's blast from the right point, Bailey grabbed the rebound in the right circle and passed to Okposo, who fired the puck into a vacant net from the slot with 7:18 remaining in the session.

Auld turned aside 28 shots.