MAKING IT ALL WORTH ISLE
Islanders winning over Brooklyn fans
They play in a place where sports history means Pee Wee Reese and Duke Snider and the long-departed Dodgers, not Denis Potvin and Mike Bossy and the new-kids-on-the-block Islanders.
They play in a basketball arena where a small chunk of fans can’t see one of the nets. Their home is more like a home away from home, since most of their players live and practise 50 kilometres away from the Barclays Center.
Their No. 1 goalie, Jaroslav Halak, has not played since March 8 because of a groin injury. His replacement, Thomas Greiss, entered these playoffs with just 28 minutes of career post-season experience.
They are without top-six forward Anders Lee, who was going to be counted on to provide much-needed offence this spring. Instead, he fractured his leg in the final weeks of the regular season and is out indefinitely.
There are plenty of reasons that the New York Islanders are unappreciated nomads of the National Hockey League to skeptics in the outside world and, as such, are seen as the unlikeliest of candidates to win their firstround matchup against the young and talented Florida Panthers.
Only, these pesky and plucky New York Islanders aren’t buying into any of it.
Despite the fact that Brooklyn’s Barclays Center is far closer to Coney Island than Long Island, their blue-and-orange fans travelled to Flatbush by the thousands for Game 3 on Sunday, turning this disfigured arena into a cauldron of noise that had the home team feeling very much like one, which hasn’t always been the case this season.
“It was so loud, I already had goosebumps when the national anthem was finished,” Islanders defenceman Thomas Hickey said.
Much like his resilient team, Hickey is an example of doing something you’re supposed to do.
In nine previous career playoff games, the Calgary native had never scored a post-season goal. Thus, when the moment called for a hero on Sunday night, Hickey was a long-shot at best.
Then again, isn’t that the same way you would describe these New York Islanders as a whole?
Yet when it mattered most, Hickey answered the call. Again.
Less than two weeks ago, his overtime goal against the Washington Capitals clinched a playoff berth for the Islanders. On Sunday, he repeated his act of coming to the rescue, beating Panthers goalie Roberto Luongo with just over seven minutes remaining in the first extra frame to give the Islanders a 4-3 victory in Game 3 of this first-round series.
The Islanders now lead the series 2-1 and can take a stranglehold on this matchup with a victory Wednesday night in Game 4 at Barclays Center. That would further confound and confuse many pundits, who didn’t expect the Isles to win this thing.
Along those same lines, on a team with John Tavares and Kyle Okposo and Nick Leddy and Johnny Boychuk, no one figured Hickey would repeatedly be the offensive hero during crunch time when it mattered most for his team. But he’s been exactly that.
“I’m coming out of my blackout now,” Hickey said just minutes after his game winner against the Panthers. “Hopefully, there are bigger ones to come.”
If it took Hickey a while to get over his disbelief at his heroics, just think how it is affecting the Panthers. About 30 minutes after the final horn, irked GM Dale Tallon could be seen walking through the bowels of the Barclays Center shaking his head. He had reason to. The Panthers have blown leads in this series continuously, including a 2-0 advantage in Game 3 that could have been more had an Aaron Ekblad second-period goal not been overturned via an Islanders coaching challenge for being offside. The reversal of that call completely changed the momentum of the game, with the Panthers ultimately paying the price.
Greiss has been wobbly at times in this series, but he has for the most part outplayed Luongo. He has two career playoff wins. That’s only two more than you and I have. And it’s 31 less than Luongo, which surely is one of the reasons for Tallon’s concern.
If the Panthers, like many in the hockey world, didn’t take the Islanders and their basketball arena seriously, they had better do so now before it’s too late — because the Isles and their rowdy fans aren’t going away.
“Each game becomes that much more crucial,” Tavares said Tuesday. “There is less room for error, obviously . ... We have to understand where we have to play and build off the good things and the importance ahead.
“I think that might be the hardest thing in the past — backing up a win with a win. They’re going to be a desperate team. We have to be the same and feed off our crowd.”
The lesson here: These Islanders really believe in these Islanders.