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Good Morning, Islanders Country.
What’s that, you say? The Isles have no chance without Mathew Barzal?
A week ago, the writing was supposed to be on the wall and in this newsletter. The Islanders had lost their best playmaker, and their next four games were all against teams in playoff position. At the end of it, there would be clarity. They’d be out of a playoff spot chasing teams with three, four, or five games in hand.
Only the team had other ideas, winning three of four and making GM Lou Lamoriello ponder that the team is worthy of further investment rather than be sellers. On Sunday night, NYIHockeyNow’s Stefen Rosner reported that the Islanders and Predators were having discussions.
While that doesn’t mean something will get done, it shows that Lamoriello hasn’t predetermined that he’s standing pat with a chance at the playoffs.
After their league-best seventh shutout of the season, the Islanders now have 69 points, seventh most in the conference, but if you go by points percentage, they’d drop to 10th. There will be some days where the scoreboard and The Math™ break right and then there will be days like Sunday where the Penguins and Sabres both won, making those games-in-hand loom larger.
"The main focus is just take care of take care of our job and trying to win games and string as many together," Brock Nelson said. "You're going to be scoreboard-watching for sure, but we don't want to have to leave it up to that."
All the Islanders can do is keep putting together games like Sunday. Right now, they’re right around a 90-point pace, and unless they can do better than that, it won’t matter what other teams do because it won’t be good enough.
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