Byfuglien Gets OT Goal To Give Atlanta The Win Over NYI
Added on Nov 22, 2010 by J Merrill in
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The Thrashers out shot the Islanders 14-6 in the scoreless first period, and went down in the second to the Islanders. Michael Grabner put the Islanders on the board to close out the second frame with a tip in. Trailing 1-0 entering the third, Nik Antropov tied the game on the power play for Atlanta with his sixth goal and second in two games. Thats how the first three periods went.
It was then Dustin Byfuglien who scored at 1:30 of overtime to give the Thrashers a 2-1 victory Sunday, extending the reeling Islanders’ losing streak to 13 games.
Byfuglien said after the game “I was looking to pass, but I had a shot, saw it and took it.” He said of the feeling he has with the game on the line, “Love it – how can you not? It’s all there, it’s all on you. You’ve got that puck, and you have to have fun with it.”
Although the winning goal definitely belongs to Byfuglien, he feels the win belongs to Thrashers goalie Ondrej Pavelec. “We had to win it for him,” Byfuglien said. “He kept us in the game.” Pavelec had 28 saves, and thats including a beautiful diving play that kept Atlanta in the game. Pavelec has only allowed one goal in two straight wins, including a 5-0 shutout at Washington on Friday night.
Pavelec said after the game “Every time you step on the ice, you want to win and I came back from that accident and I couldn’t win a game. It was nice to get the first one and now it’s behind me. I’m just trying to help the team to win the game and get the most points.” Pavelec fainted in the first game of season, and missed quite a few games because of a concussion he sustained when he fell. He continued “I feel really good in the net and comfortable. It is a team effort. … The guys in front played great tonight.”
Thrashers coach Craig Ramsay said Byfuglien really comes alive when the game is on the line, and its a wonderful asset for a team to have. “He wants to be a difference-maker all the time,” Ramsay said. “That’s the biggest asset a hockey player can have … is to want to be the difference-maker, to want to be the guy, to be the man. He puts his hand up.” Ramsay also said Byfuglien admitted when he made a mistake earlier in the game, “He also took credit for the play for their goal on the 4-on-4. He held himself accountable and told his teammates he’d get it back and he did.”
The Islanders have only 12 goals in their last 11 games, and their losing streak is now 13. After firing Scott Gordon when the streak reached 10 straight losses, interim coach Jack Capuano lost his third straight. Capuano believed his goalie Rick Dipietro was their number one asset during the game. Dipietro was starting for the first time in 18 days. Capuano said “He was outstanding, He was what I thought he was going to be. He was focused and competitive all week and he played extremely well.”
Dipietro feels that fans shouldn’t right off the team yet this year, because all the guys on the team care. He admits they need to score more goals, but he also said “A loss is a loss,” DiPietro said. “We are doing things better and the effort is there, but it’s very frustrating to lose tonight’s game. We are capable of doing a lot for long stretches of time but a few mistakes here and there and it costs us the game. We have a great group of guys. There aren’t 20 guys in the world that I’d rather go to war with. Throughout this whole thing, these guys care. I hope people realize this. This is unacceptable for us. We came into this season with the belief that there would be no excuses and we are not going to make any. We want to win games, and this loss eats away at us.”
The New York Islanders (4-12-4, 12pts) will play Columbus (12-6-0, 24pts) on Wednesday, and the Atlanta Thrashers (9-9-3) play The Detroit Redwings (3-3-2, 28pts) on the same day.
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