Patrick Roy's Islanders defied the odds and the naysayers and punched their ticket into the Stanley Cup Playoffs, earning themselves a First Round rematch vs the Carolina Hurricanes! Canes beat writer Cory Lavalette joins Sean and Stefen to preview the series and what may come in the 7-game bout.
The Islanders open their playoff series on Saturday, as do the New York Knicks and the New York Mets season is alive and well after it was deemed over following the first five games of the season. If you’re a fan of those teams or just love good, passionate writing, be sure to subscribe to Knicks Film School and MetsFix.
Good Morning, Islanders Country.
If you haven’t noticed, the Isles haven’t been given much of a shot to knock off the Carolina Hurricanes, their playoff nemesis two out of the previous five seasons. That has as much to do with the Canes as it does the Islanders. The prevailing narrative is that while the Islanders gave Carolina a tough series last year, this Canes team is healthier, deeper, and simply better than last year.
That’s probably true, and even if the Islanders are improved, the gap between them and the Canes may have widened since last season. Rod Brind'Amour’s team is the Vegas favorite and is primed for a deep run in pursuit of their first Stanley Cup since 2006. They've added Jake Guentzel at the trade deadline and this year, have a healthy Andrei Svechnikov. Plus, players like Seth Jarvis raised their game to a new level, going from 14 goals to 33 this season. You can make a case that five of their defensemen are top-pair guys.
They're really, really good.
What the Islanders have going for them is that they aren’t the same team, either. They have Patrick Roy behind the bench, a fully healthy Mathew Barzal, and enter the series on an 8-0-1 run (best finish since 1980) and are riding one of the hottest goaltenders in the league in Semyon Varlamov. If the Isles can stay out of the box and find their early season power-play form, they have a chance.
Anything can happen in the Stanley Cup Playoffs; anyone would concede that. Yet, you get the feeling the Islanders remain viewed as a mediocre, even bad (although not Capitals bad) team that is fortunate to have made the postseason. The Isles will have the odds stacked against them, but that’s nothing new and what this team tends to thrive on. They’ve already defied the odds by making the playoffs; now they get to try to pull off something even less probable.
Let’s dive in.
📰 NEWS: The NHL season ended last night, which allowed the league to release the rest of the playoff schedule. After Saturday’s Game 1 series opener, the Islanders and Canes play Game 2 on Monday before the series heads back to Long Island for Game 3 on Thursday night and Game 4 on Saturday afternoon.
Successful Debut
It was likely one and done for Ruslan Iskhakov this season, but the two-time AHL All-Star who became the first Islander since Kieffer Bellows to earn an assist in his NHL debut left nothing but good impressions with a solid performance on Wednesday night.
"He's got great energy. He competes. He's small, but I don't know if he knows he's small, the way he's been playing, so that's nice to watch,” said head coach Patrick Roy. “It was fun. I have time for him."
Iskhakov saw time on the power-play and picked up an assist on Samuel Bolduc’s go-ahead girl in the third period. "From each period, I was getting more comfortable. I was understanding more. My first shifts, you're just all over the place, with adrenaline, just going through the roof, and you have so much energy, but I settled down after the first period, and I felt pretty comfortable.”
Palms Away!
Kyle Palmieri reached 30 goals for the second time in his career and first with the Islanders on Wednesday night. To get there, he needed to score at a clip rarely scene in team history. Palmieri became the first Islander since Ziggy Palffy (1995-96 and 1996-97) to score at least 15 goals in the last 23 games. (Mike Bossy -5 times, Steve Thomas and Pierre Turgeon twice are the only others).
The last time the 33-year-old reached the 30-goal plateau came during the 2015-16 season with the New Jersey Devils. That season he also finished with exactly 30 goals and was coincidentally the only other time he played in all 82 games.
⏭ NEXT UP: Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Quarterfinals matchup between the New York Islanders and Carolina Hurricanes is set for Saturday night.
Puck drop from Raleigh, NC, is set for 5:00 PM EDT.
📊 STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS:
First Time, Long Time
In a season of milestones for Cal Clutterbuck, the one he achieved last night may have been the most rewarding and surprising accomplishment. By skating in the regular-season finale against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Clutterbuck became the first player since Hall-of-Fame defenseman Chris Pronger in 2008-09 to play all 82 regular season games in a season after playing his 1,000th career NHL game.
Prior to this season, the most games the 36-year-old had played in a year was 78 back in 2008-09 with the Minnesota Wild. His highest number of games with the Islanders was 77, reached during the 2015-16 season.
Clutterbuck joined Brock Nelson, Kyle Palmieri, and Jean-Gabriel Pageau as this season's "Iron Men," who played in every regular season game. Captain Anders Lee had played in the previous 81 before last night's 5-4 win but was kept out for personal reasons.
📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, the Isles end the season on a 9-game point streak for the first time since a 12-game streak in 1980 (8-0-4). The Isles also won their last five home games; it is their longest single-season streak since March 2022. Brock Nelson led the Isles in goals for the fifth straight season after Lee did so in the prior three seasons. Noah Dobson is the first defenseman to lead the team in assists since Nick Leddy in 2020-21.
🎥 ISLES REWIND: On April 19, 2022, the New York Islanders paid tribute to Mike Bossy, who passed away on April 15th from lung cancer at the age of 65. After reading off Bossy’s lengthy list of accomplishments, a video tribute was played, followed by chants of “Bos-sy!, Bos-sy!” and a moment of silence. As for the game, Sebastian Aho and JG Pageau each scored but the Islanders fell 3-2 in overtime to the Florida Panthers at UBS Arena.
🎧 The Red Line: We Told You So! In the latest episode of “The Red Line,” co-hosts Phil Farber (@PhilzFacts) and David Tuchman (@TuckOnSports) the boys feel vindicated and revel in the fact that, although there were moments of doubt, they were ultimately proven right about the playoff fate of the New York Islanders.
🔗 The tao of Patrick Roy: How a Hall of Fame player’s passion, strategy turned Islanders around by Arthur Staple, The Athletic “There was energy and excitement from the moment the Isles players found out that Lane Lambert was fired and Patrick Roy — the Patrick Roy — was coming in to be their new coach back on Jan. 20. “I mean,” Brock Nelson said a few weeks later, “it’s Patrick Roy. Everyone knows who he is.”
🔗 Islanders Ruslan Iskhakov Makes NHL Debut: 'We Knew The Kind Of Skill He Had' by Stefen Rosner, The Hockey News “Ruslan Iskhakov had been waiting patiently for the New York Islanders to give him a chance at the NHL level. With their game against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night meaningless after clinching a playoff spot on Monday, Iskhakov got his shot.”
And we leave you with this…a photo I had never seen before yesterday, Gary “The Kid” Carter with a youthful and dapper-looking Pat LaFontaine.
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