Sunday came and went without the NHL issuing any further discipline to Bruins forward Brad Marchand for his high hit on John Tavares on Saturday night.
Marchand was assessed a five-minute major penalty for the hit, after taking a direct route to Tavares and leveling him to the ice with his shoulder, but will not face any other repercussions from the NHL’s department of player safety.
Tavares said before Monday night’s game against the Capitals he wasn’t worried about the lack of punishment, leaving it simply as “the video speaks for itself.”
Coach Doug Weight’s reaction was more pointed.
“Things are targeted, things happen spontaneously,” Weight said Monday. “But to me, the ones that are premeditated, it’s unfortunate when we only look at results. So if Johnny lies there and he is hurt, there’d probably be something done. I don’t know the logic in that.”
That wasn’t the only chippy play of the game. David Backes was later ejected in the third period for head-butting Andrew Ladd, but the department of player safety has not announced any fallout from that hit, either, as the Bruins appeared to get away relatively scot-free on both accounts.
“I was probably a little surprised,” Weight said.
Jaroslav Halak drew his third straight start in net Monday. Entering the game with a 2.93 goals-against average and .905 save percentage compared to Thomas Greiss’ 3.79 and .890, Halak has “probably taken the ball a little bit” in the Islanders’ goalie competition, Weight said.
Still, Weight stood behind both of his netminders.
“I feel good about both our goalies,” he said. “No one else does. I don’t really care.”
The Islanders entered Monday having given up at least one power-play goal in each of their previous seven games and 11 power-play goals combined in that span. On the flip side, their own power-play unit had scored on just two of its previous 20 chances.
“We’ve gone through this stretch before as a power play,” Anders Lee said. “[Penalty kill], we’re stepping it up and it’s going to change. It’s just a little bit of a rut we’re in. We’ll be fine.”
On Sunday, the Islanders placed defenseman Thomas Hickey (upper-body injury) on injured reserve — “Hopefully that’s brief,” Weight said — and sent center Shane Prince (ankle) to AHL Bridgeport for a conditioning assignment.