The New York Islanders didn’t exactly ease into their matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tampa Bay came out leaning on its usual physical identity and had the Islanders on their heels early, building a 2-0 lead by the end of the first period.
New York needed something to jolt it awake, and it got it from Logan Stanley.
The defenseman, signed after training camp and just before the regular season started, has quickly become more than just an add-on for this roster. In five games, Stanley has four assists, a plus/minus of +3 and 17 penalty minutes. That stat line tells the story pretty cleanly: he’s producing, he’s defending, and he’s not backing away from the rough stuff.
He was noticeable before the gloves even came off. At the end of the first period, Stanley was seen talking to players on the Lightning bench. Then, in the second period, he dropped the gloves with Scott Sabourin, and the energy shifted.
“I didn’t love a couple of our lines early and I had given some of those lines some runway hoping that it works but it was time for a change,” DeBoer said, via Tyler Millen of NHL.com. “I would also add that I think the Stanley scrap got us involved in the game too. I think it was the line changes were a piece, but I think Stan kind of dragged us into the fight there.”
That spark mattered. After DeBoer shuffled his lines, moving Ondrej Palat to the third line in place of Simon Holmstrom, who dropped to the fourth, the Islanders found some life. Tony DeAngelo scored to cut the deficit in half, and the bench response seemed to grow from there.
Matthew Schaefer made it clear where he thought that shift began.
“It starts with Stans [Stanley] obviously dropping the mitts just riding for our team, answering the bell, getting us going,” Schaefer added. “I think that is where it started.
Tony [DeAngelo] gets one, and then obviously (a) good screen in front on mine, and it just found its way in. It's fun when we're when we're you know going and we're moving like that.
We had a couple shifts there where we were hemming them in their zone, and we just kept going to work and it's fun.”
From there, New York started matching Tampa Bay’s edge instead of absorbing it. The forecheck picked up, and the Islanders were more willing to finish checks and play through contact. Bo Horvat, Brayden Schenn and Victor Eklund each finished with four hits, and the Islanders out-hit the Lightning 30-18.
Stanley’s fight with Sabourin was the moment that seemed to pull the whole group into the game. Since arriving, he’s given New York exactly the kind of edge it was looking for, and with Schaefer now on a line with him, Stanley is making his presence felt at both ends of the ice.
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