OTTAWA – Expect the volume of the Islanders-Senators series to be turned up considerably tonight for Game 2. Expect the Senators to play harder and expect the Islanders to come out with even more ferocity.
And you can bet your bottom dollar Alexei Yashin will have an even bigger target on his chest. If you didn’t notice in Game 1, which the Islanders won 3-0, the Senators went out of their way to blast Yashin, their former captain and the unquestioned Bobby Bonilla of this city.
The articles in the local newspaper here have been downright pathetic in their attempt to get a rise out of the big Russian, the cheap shots raining down on No. 79 like locusts. And the fans bubbled with glee Wednesday every time Yashin was hammered by the home team.
More troubling for the Isles was the fact that not enough of those runs against Yashin turned into penalties. He took a beating, as Game 1 deteriorated into a contest to see who could draw the loudest cheers in knocking him to the ice, burying a glove in his face or taking a whack at him with their sticks.
“They may have had certain guys on their team that wanted to get slapped on the back, saying, ‘Great job. You’re the one that hit Alex the hardest,’ ” Michael Peca said. “We didn’t really care what their intentions are with respect to that part of the game.”
It’s been documented that all the attention paid to Yashin worked in the Islanders’ favor, so No. 79 will suck it up tonight and may want to try playing with a second layer of pads.
“They’re gonna do what they think they have to do in order to be successful and we’re gonna do what we have to do,” Isles coach Peter Laviolette said. “If they feel they need to do that, then maybe they’ll stay with that same plan.”
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From the Double-Standard Department: How can Eric Godard get a one-game suspension (served tonight) while Dallas defenseman Derian Hatcher went without so much as a slap on the wrist for his intent-to-injure elbow to the Oilers’ Steve Staios’ face Wednesday night?
“That’s always been the case with supplementary discipline,” Peca said. “That’s the way it goes.”
