At 38 years old, Evgeni Nabokov has seen it all in the NHL. When it comes to moving on past an early playoff exit, he knows what that’s like all too well.
As he tells Arthur Staple of New York Newsday, he moved on past his disappointing play in that series already and is ready to get started anew.
“With me, 2-3 weeks and it’s out of the window. We have to move on,” Nabokov said. “We can’t continue to think about what happened last year. Last year is last year; it was a 48-game season, was totally different. That’s in the past. Who cares? I don’t care.”
You have to love the stubbornness of a veteran goalie.
Nabokov is right to want to forget about that series because he played poorly against the high-powered Penguins putting up a .842 save percentage and a 4.44 goals-against average. If he let that performance linger in his memory, he might have nightmares.
As it is, he’s gunning to lead the Islanders even higher in the standings this year in the new Metropolitan Division. Now that the Islanders have gotten a taste for the playoffs, they don’t want it to be another five years before they get back again.
