Isles 7
Penguins 2
The kids have arrived.
On a night the Islanders’ shooters were hot – and they sure sizzled against the defensively challenged Penguins – the hottest stick belonged to Trent Hunter. That alone makes things interesting now that Steve Stirling has three young forwards in 23-year olds Hunter and Justin Papineau and 19-year old rookie Sean Bergenheim he absolutely must give more responsibility to than just checking- line duty.
“It’s the best I’ve seen him play since he’s been here,” Stirling said of Hunter.
No. 7 zapped two goals over Sebastien Caron’s catching glove in just his first 3:41 of ice time as the Isles cruised to a 7-2 win over Pittsburgh last night at the Coliseum.
On a night when the Islanders outshot their opponents 38-21, when the teams engaged in five fights for the match (and combined for 88 penalty minutes), when six-year Islander battering ram Steve Webb made his debut for the Pens and on a night Mario Lemieux nearly came to blows with several of the orange-clad Isles, the most dominant performance by any player was turned in by Hunter.
“It was good to get the first one,” Hunter said of his first-ever NHL goals.
But for all he did in all three zones, for some reason Hunter couldn’t get a sniff on the power play when the Isles were a man-up for nearly eight full minutes in the second period and he was looking for a hat trick. In fact, Shawn Bates even got more power-play time that period when he manned the point on a four-minute advantage. That unit went 1-for-7 with the extra man.
“I know he’s done it before,” Stirling said of the Bates decision, “and I wanted to take a peek at it.”
As for Lemieux, who several times went after Eric Cairns and got away with a hard cross-check into Roman Hamrlik’s back, he would not comment on the fireworks, which included a heated exchange in the hallway between the locker rooms after the game. At the center of that post-game exchange on both sides of the iron gate down there were Pittsburgh’s Kelly Buchberger, Mike Peca and Cairns, yet Lemieux didn’t even dignify a question about it with so much as a “no comment.”
Mariusz Czerkawski potted a pair of goals, pumping his season total to seven. Janne Niinimaa’s rebound at 16:06 of the second made it 5-0 and Jason Blake’s point slap made it 6-1 after Rico Fata beat Garth Snow (19 saves) with a backhand breakaway.
With all the Isles’ pups getting into the action, Bergenheim scored the goal of the year with his first-ever NHL score – short-handed, no less – when he faked Martin Straka and Caron out of their skates late in the third to complete the scoring.
* There was a classy move by the fans who chanted Webb’s name after he landed a hit on Mark Parrish . . . Lemieux recorded career point No. 1,699 with his assist on Alex Morozov’s goal late in the third . . . Alexei Yashin had three assists.
