Jerked around
Carolina beating Islanders at their own stingy game
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — The New York Islanders have arrived at the intersection of Rapture and Torture.
After rolling over Pittsburgh in four games in round 1, only their second playoff series W in the last 26 years, they are being pushed to the curb by “those bunch of jerks” from Carolina, dropping the first two in their home-away-from-home Barclays Center.
Against the Penguins, the Islanders trailed for five minutes over four games, scoring 14 goals.
Against the Hurricanes, the Islanders have trailed for 19 of the 124 minutes but have one goal.
We’ve come to the “uh, oh!” moment for the Islanders.
After the Penguins were a speed bump, the Hurricanes, with their starting goalie, a defenceman and four of their top 12 forwards out, are beating them at their own stingy game. A 1-0 loss in OT last Friday and a 2-1 loss Sunday when Carolina scored two goals out of nowhere in 48 seconds in the first two shifts of the third period with Isles coach Barry Trotz tossing off his oft-used “unseen hand” analogy that often pops up to wreck games.
Now, this could only be a pothole in the road—the Isles will be seeing backup goalie Curtis McElhinney maybe for the rest of the series with Petr Mrazek hurt and Hayden Fleury coming in on defence might be a shaky reinforcement— but they still have to win four of the next five. Three of those games are on the road in Raleigh, N.C., where the Canes are 3-0 in the postseason.
“There’s urgency, but there’s no panic ... panic comes when the word hope is in your mind. We don’t have that. You go down 3-0, it’ll take a real epic (comeback), but it’s still a race to four,” said Trotz.
Predictably, the Isles are all about fighting words. Teams down two games have no choice. Talk can be cheap, of course. But everything’s gone so right for the Isles this year (103 points), the opening sweep against Pittsburgh, best goals against in the league, goalie Robin Lehner a Vezina finalist.
“Yeah, it has to be a gather the troops mentality for us … we have another level, we can’t have any passengers,” said Trotz, who still feels this is a winnable series, but what else is he supposed to say or do? Get out the white “we surrender” towel?
“We’ve hit how many posts? I mean hockey’s a game of inches,” he said. “We have to fight to get those inches on our side. In the last minute 6-on-5,Sunday, we hit the crossbar (Ryan Pulock), the puck comes back, hits their goalie on the back and (Anders) Lee hits the post so we don’t tie it.”
“I don’t want to take anything away from Carolina, though, that’s a resilient bunch over there...they have the personality of their coach, but we’re resilient too,” said Trotz.
“First game we had a goal we didn’t get from goalie interference should’ve been a goal,” Lehner said.
“Next game, three or four posts and bars. We’re not going to put excuses on hitting posts and bars, but reality is we were the better team.”
Maybe they feel that but they are down two to a team that bends but doesn’t really break. They are a different animal from the Penguins.
That said. Isles’ coach Rod Brind’Amour didn’t like Sunday’s game, except the result.
“We had lots of errors, gave up way too many chances, for no reason, and we got fortunate,” he said. “And our powerplay? It was no good (0-for3, including 85 seconds of 5-on-3 to run it 3-for-33 in the playoffs). We got lucky (all the posts) but we got unlucky when they scored off (Jaccob) Slavin, and all the injuries. Kind of depends which side of the fence you’re on.”
“Pittsburgh had lots of risk and reward to their game. they would throw lots up on their attack and if it didn’t work, you would get 2-on-1s. Carolina? They’re like us where they like to have five guys in the zone defending, attacking in groups of five. You can’t cheat to get offence against them,” said Lehner, who’s upheld his part of the bargain, stopping 47 of 50 shots through two games.
But he’s getting no run support.
Their only goal was actually put in by Slavin, who tried to stop Mat Barzal’s pass to Josh Bailey in the first period of Game 2 and had it ramp off his blade by Mrazek.
The league’s best defending team (193 goals against) has only given up nine goals in six playoff games, but you can’t win when you can’t score.
“Carolina plays very structured, similar to the way we play and you can’t let frustration set in,” said Bailey, one of three Islander players to blast shots off the post in the third period Sunday. “We’ve found ways to frustrate teams throughout the year and in the playoffs and you can’t let them reverse it on you.”
Right now it’s two counter-punchers in the ring and Carolina’s winning on points.