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Good Morning, Islanders Country.
I know you’re upset, angry, and borderline despondent after how Game 2 ended, but there should be a tinge of optimism as the series shifts back to Long Island.
We’ll explain why in a minute.
But first, despite what Mike Rupp (former Isles 1998 1st round pick that never signed) says, this was a penalty. A player is responsible for controlling their stick with the exception of normal windup or follow-through of a shooting motion. Those are the only exceptions. Whether Scott Mayfield popped Jordan Martinook’s stick doesn’t matter, at least according to the rule book.
Not that it would’ve made a difference, but the Islanders didn’t get an explanation from the league after the game, and we didn’t get a chance to hear from Mayfield, who was getting medical attention from the training staff. It was an insult-to-injury moment if there ever was one for the defenseman.
Now that that’s out of the way, what makes last night’s game that much harder to take is that the Islanders overcame a ton in this game - two double minors, the flukiest of fluke goals, and not earning a power play for the first time in the team’s playoff history.
All that, and they still came back from down 2-0 on the road and had a 3-2 lead with less than 10 minutes left to play. It was a game that was there to be stolen in the third period, and they were in a position to win after the Brock Nelson goal.
It’s a game you absolutely need to close out. But, and some of you are not going to want to hear this, this loss is on Ilya Sorokin more than anyone or anything else.
We get it; he’s great. They’d be in the draft lottery if it weren’t for him, but Sorokin allowed two fluky but avoidable goals that simply cannot happen when you are one of the best in the world. The other-worldly goaltender is supposed to be the difference between winning and losing, and yet, he was on the wrong side of that last night. We wrote about how his Game 1 performance would’ve been good enough to win on most nights, and you know what, a Game 1 performance would’ve won Game 2. It was disappointing.
Reasons for Optimism
The Islanders can absolutely hang with the Carolina Hurricanes, and they have been the better team playing 5-vs-5 during this series. Given everything that transpired over the last two games, we’ve seen enough to have a positive outlook for the next two home games, where the Islanders will be able to dictate matchups and get the Barzal-Horvat-Lee line away from Jordan Staal.
Offensively, the Canes aren’t too dissimilar to the Islanders right now; they have talent up front, but is there a player that scares you when they have the puck other than Brent Burns? If the Islanders stay out of the penalty box - a tough task so far, there’s reason to expect that Carolina will have an even harder time generating scoring chances at UBS Arena. The Canes have been a flat-out bad road team in the post-season recently (lost 7 straight) and will be without Teuvo Teravainen, who broke his hand in Game 2 and will have surgery.
Winning four of the next five games seems daunting. It is daunting. But this series is still winnable, just as the first two games in Carolina were. I expect the crowd to be extra feisty after how things ended on Wednesday night, and the Isles have a chance to seize the momentum and go back to Raleigh even in the series.
Coming up, Alexander Romanov is still not ready to return, and Samuel Bolduc is benched for the second time in three games. Plus, both Sebastian Aho’s have now scored for the Canes in this series; those that have a ticket for Game 3 will get a ticket for Game 3, and a fast, not Fast, OT winner.
Let’s dive in.
🏒 IN SHORT: Jesper Fast scored 5:03 into overtime to give the Carolina Hurricanes a 4-3 win over the Islanders and a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series. The Hurricanes jumped out to a 1-0 lead on Paul Stastny's deflection 5:49 into the first period and took a 2-0 lead when the Isles' Sebastian Aho batted a puck backward, and it bounced off the ice and past Ilya Sorokin, who made 32 saves. The Isles tied the game at 2-2 heading into the third period on a goal from Kyle Palmieri and one from Mathew Barzal in the final seconds of the period. Brock Nelson gave New York their first lead of the series midway through the third, but Jacob Slavin tied the game at 12:19 when his sharp-angled shot deflected off Sorokin's mask and in. Antii Raanta made 23 saves for Carolina.
KEY MOMENT(s):
🔹 Brock Nelson gave the Isles a 3-2 lead at 9:18 of the third period when he took a pass from Palmieri in the neutral zone and slipped past Hurricanes forward Martin Necas before scoring on a wrist shot from the left circle.
🔻 Jaccob Slavin tied it 3-3 at 12:19 when he pinched down to the goal line on the left side and scored off Sorokin's mask inside the near post.
🔻 Jesper Fast scored at 5:03 of overtime, taking a cross-ice pass from Jordan Staal and scoring on a wrist shot from the right face-off circle.
3 REACTIONS
❶ WERE IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT: "You look at the good things, we were in the driver's seat, we were in a good position to win the game, but it didn't happen," Zach Parise said. "If you look at the game as a whole we'll leave there saying to ourselves there were a lot of really good things we did, and a couple of fluky goals were the difference."
❷ DIDN’T GET THE RESULT: "A lot of compete and a lot of fight," Noah Dobson said. "It's not easy being down two on the road in a building like this and to claw back get it to 2-2. It's unfortunate, overall, we were pretty solid tonight. It's disappointing we didn't get the result."
❸ DID A LOT OF GOOD THINGS: "We played hard. Did a lot of good things. Competed. The penalty kill was good and I thought it was a good effort,"head coach Lane Lambert said.
GameScore Impact Card
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders - Hurricanes series heads to Long Island for the first home game in UBS Arena history on Friday night in Elmont, NY.
The puck drops at 7:00 PM
🏆 STANLEY CUP® PLAYOFFS:
📰 NEWS: After not ruling him out on Tuesday, defenseman Alexander Romanov remained out of the lineup and did not join the team for their morning skate. The 23-year-old continues to skate on his own, but it’s hard to expect him to play before getting at least one full practice with the team. The Islanders have been the more physical team in the first two, and that’s without their biggest hitter.
“Yeah, he’s definitely a key player for us,” center Jean-Gabriel Pageau said of Romanov. “He brings a lot of physicality. He’s a very solid defenseman. When you have a guy out, you need guys to fill in and I think Sammy [rookie Samuel Bolduc] has been doing a really good job. He’s asking a lot of questions.”
◾️ Despite Pageau’s encouraging words about Bolduc, the rookie defenseman had another forgetful night. He served a double-minor for high-sticking Brett Pesce at 4:01 of the second period. Similar to what happened against the Montreal Canadiens in the regular season finale, he was benched by head coach Lane Lambert for the rest of the game, straining the rest of the blueline as only five played the rest of the way. Bolduc played just 5:08 in the game over eight shifts.
🤷♂️ HOW DID THAT HAPPEN: In the Sebastian Aho vs. Sebastian Aho series, there was an own call from Sebastian Aho. The Isles’ Aho swatted the puck backward, and it bounded awkwardly in front of Sorokin, who hadn’t tracked the puck, and it kicked in the net for a power-play goal, and a 2-0 Hurricanes lead.
🎟 ADMIT ONE: When you go to UBS Arena and other venues around the league, everything is now hi-tech. And in what has been a bigger trend in recent years, your ticket to the game is no longer in your wallet; it’s in your digital wallet. For a generation of sports fans, holding onto ticket stubs - especially to playoff games was a tradition and was a cherished keepsake. Well, per Darren Rovell, the Islanders will be giving fans commemorative tickets for the first playoff game in UBS Arena history on Friday night. We’ll see if they do this for more.
📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, Game 2 was the first time in Islander playoff history that they did not have a power play. Carolina had all six power plays in the game. It is the first time since Game 2 of the 1981 Final that an opponent has had at least six more power plays than the Isles (MIN 8, Isles 2). It is only the second time since power play attempts were officially recorded in 1978 that one team has had at least six power plays while the other team had none (TB 6 vs. CBJ 0 in 5-4 OT win for TB 8/19/2020 to win series, 3 games to 2).
🗓 ISLES REWIND: On April 19, 2015, After winning the overtime-opening faceoff, Islanders captain John Tavares scored 15 seconds into the extra period to seal a 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals in Game 3 of their first-round playoff series at the Nassau Coliseum.
Tavares became the first Islanders player to score a playoff overtime goal since David Volek did in Game 7 of a second-round 4-3 win over Pittsburgh on May 14, 1993. The Isles had lost its previous six overtime playoff games.
🎧 Eyes on Isles Podcast: Fluky and Frustrating: In the latest edition of the Eyes on Isles Podcast, Joe Buono (@IslesFix) and Andy Francess (@AndyFrancess) provide their instant reactions following the Islanders disheartening 4-3 OT loss to Carolina
🎧 Talkin’ Isles: Butch Goring “Butch Goring joined Cory and Greg for Ep. 44 of the podcast. Goring talked about how he got his nickname “Butch” (1:59), winning the Calder Cup in 1971 with the Springfield Kings alongside Jean Potvin and Billy Smith (10:20), his famous trade to Long Island in 1980 (19:35), winning the Conn Smythe in 1981 for Playoff MVP (22:14), signing autographs for fans during intermissions (26:40), providing color commentary MSG Networks (40:32), and more!”
And we leave you with this …. the Hurricanes’ Twitter account has historically been one of the more “playful” in the league and took this subtle jab at Long Islanders after those pile on in front of the net.
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Just a stupid and annoying game. We were the better team and should have won. Re: Sorokin; the second goal was a complete fluke and the third one was flukey - I would have wanted him to stop the fourth one; he over committed.
It's very frustrating that we lost a game due to an own goal from our blue line and a shot from behind the goal line.
Not getting that penalty call was egregious. If we aren't calling high sticks late in the game then perhaps they could have given us notice about that in the 2020 ECF.