ATLANTA – The dateline and the opponent for tonight’s game is of little importance. So when the Islanders take the ice against the Thrashers here this evening, the other team and the surroundings don’t mean a thing.
That’s because the Islanders have to worry about themselves and fix what’s broken before the season advances any further.
“There are some things we need to work out,” Shawn Bates said. “Especially penalty-killing and the power play, so, yeah, it doesn’t matter who we play.”
So tonight will be the Islanders against a nameless, faceless team they will treat as lab rats, and it makes all the sense in the world. With all that the Isles have done wrong or poorly in their first four games, they have to plug all the holes and repair all the leaks before they move on.
Like spreading out too much on defense and on the penalty kill. Like the discipline issues that continued to haunt them through two separate 5-on-3 man-disadvantages in their last game, issues of showing up flat and not “ripping the door off its hinges,” as their coach likes to say.
“It’s just not clicking right now,” Bates said. “It’s depressing to see how we’re doing right now, but thank God it’s only four games into the season.”
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RW Eric Godard was returned to AHL Bridgeport yesterday.