If you enjoy close games, the NY Islanders have been the team for you

When watching your team play an 82-game regular season, you expect games to take on a variety of different emotions throughout the year. After all, the ups and downs of a season are what makes it fun and interesting, even if there are stretches that stress us out and deliver us grief.

There are times when you are team is flat and is blown out and others were they rout an opponent. Sometimes, you are on the long side of a thrilling come-from-behind, and other times, you endure watching a third-period collapse or a comeback fall short.

If you enjoy close games, the NY Islanders have been the team for you

The New York Islanders have given you very few games this season that have allowed you to sit back, relax, and enjoy. Through 27 games this season, the team has played 18 one-goal games and has won 10, leading the league in both categories.

Do they like it as this NHL Network suggests? It probably depends on how they get there. According to statistician Eric Hornick, the team has scored a third-period tying goal for the sixth time this season and has allowed twelve of them.

Over their last 14 games, the Islanders have registered points in nine of them (9-1-4), and 12 of them have been one-goal games, with eight of them going into overtime or a shootout. Overall, 11 games this season have gone beyond 60 minutes, with the team going 3-5 in OT (after starting 0-5) and 1-2 in the shootout, with the one win coming against the Calgary Flames to snap a seven-game winless streak in November.

Finding a way to win close games is viewed as a mark of a good team. The more you experience it, the more you feel comfortable playing in tight situations that will undoubtedly come along toward the end of the season as teams try to solidify playoff position.

The thing with the Islanders is that we've seen them be on both ends of the results frequently. On any given night, it's hard to know how a game is going to end up close, whether it's the Islanders mounting a comeback or coughing up a multi-goal lead in the third period. What we do know, is that when you attend or turn on an Islanders game this season, you're unlikely to be able to relax for long.