Last night on Hockey Night in New York, the Isles return home from a 2-1-0 road trip vs three tough conference foes and suddenly find themselves in a playoff spot.
After blowing another lead in a loss to NJ, they managed to reverse their late-game fortunes vs the Canes and Cats with two big wins. Are they figuring things out? Sean and Stefen tried to answer that question with some help from Ethan Sears of the NY Post.
Good Morning, Islanders Country.
I expected to write a different type of newsletter on the Monday after the end of this three-game road trip - all against playoff teams from last year.
Following a “this is the type of loss that gets you fired” game against the New Jersey Devils, the Islanders allowed Carolina to tie the game on Thursday night with 2.5 seconds left, and you were thinking to yourself, “there’s no coming back from this” not for the team and not for the coach.
Only they did come back, and then some. Mathew Barzal’s OT goal allowed them to breathe a sigh of relief, and then they followed it up with a win without Barzal against another playoff team in the Florida Panthers.
These two games aren’t necessarily turning you into a believer. Most of the criticism toward this team was warranted, but they showed us something these last two games, and you have to acknowledge signs of improvement.
They killed eight of nine penalties on the road trip, and their powerplay, which scored in each game, may actually be, dare we say, good. But they’re still giving up way too many shots (much more on that later), are in the bottom third of the league in goals-per-game, and are still down two of their top six defensemen for the foreseeable future.
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If you’re not ready to buy in, we get it, and we’re there with you, but despite all that has gone wrong, the team finds itself in a Wild Card spot, which is where most prognosticators expected them to be before the season, it’s just how they got there which has been head-scratching.
We don’t know how things will go from here, but if this season stays true to form, it will be the path we least expect.
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