NEWARK, N.J. — The ups and downs. The blown leads and sacrificed points. The coaching change. The six-game winning streak to give some hope followed by a 2-7-1 slide to give that hope back.
After all of it, the New York Islanders are in the playoffs. Their 4-1 win over the Devils on Monday in Game 81 was the first one in their 7-0-1 streak that the Isles didn’t need to hold onto a one-goal lead in the final minutes of regulation. It was just the 14th game this season that their penalty kill was perfect on at least three opposition power plays and they actually scored a power-play goal of their own, their fourth PPG in the last 15 games.
It wasn’t easy. Would it even be the Islanders if it were? But here they are, in the playoffs in the final few days of the regular season once more, awaiting a matchup with the Carolina Hurricanes in the opening round once more. And they did it with a consistent show of Islander DNA — a combination of hardy defense, good-to-excellent goaltending and opportunistic scoring.
“Obviously we didn’t want it to be as hard it was to get in, but whatever,” Cal Clutterbuck said. “We’re here now. We got a chance.”
PLAYOFFF BOUNDDD. 😤 😤 😤 pic.twitter.com/hbs5DYEU7l
— New York Islanders (@NYIslanders) April 16, 2024
Semyon Varlamov, looking once more like the goalie Patrick Roy will select to start Game 1 in Raleigh this weekend, played another stout game in making 23 saves. His teammates blocked another 22 Devils shots, six alone by Alexander Romanov, who had a standout game in his own end.
Mat Barzal and Bo Horvat were held off the score sheet for a second straight game and Noah Dobson (upper body) was out of the lineup for a second straight, but the offense still showed. The Anders Lee-J-G Pageau-Pierre Engvall line cracked open the scoring in a tight first, then two-thirds of that line contributed on the 4-1 goal in the third when Lee bulled his way through the middle of the ice and fed rookie Kyle MacLean for a slam-dunk goal that put the game away with 13:43 to go.
“We were challenged with that a lot this year,” Lee said of the frustrations his team and he personally felt during the roller coaster. “It was tough at times to feel like we were going to pull ourselves out of it. We always believed, but you’ve still got to go out there and perform and make it happen. I’m just really proud of this group for sticking with one another, committing to the goal at hand and putting ourselves in the playoffs.”
Kyle Palmieri deflected a Mike Reilly shot on the power play for a 2-0 lead after one. Brock Nelson, who had one goal in 15 games coming into the Ranger game Saturday, has three now in the last two after banging home a loose puck through a crowd for a 3-1 lead in the second. That one was big — the Devils had cut the Isles lead to 2-1 early in the second and the Isles had to kill off a Nelson penalty just 33 seconds after the Timo Meier goal.
The penalty kill looked nothing like the one that flailed all season long. That unit is all the way up to 72.2 percent efficiency now, still dead last in the league but operating with more confidence of late. Of course, this was the last game of the season for the Devils, who have been through the wringer this year (and also were missing Jack Hughes), so it’s not like the Isles shut down the Mike Bossy-Bryan Trottier-Denis Potvin era Isles power play.
But they’ve given up PPGs to far worse teams this season. And there was no panic when the 2-0 lead went to 2-1, even though this team’s play has conditioned Isles fans to expect the worst when a lead starts to shrink.
“We don’t get affected by giving up a goal or two right now,” Roy said. “That’s a big difference, in my opinion, more than the structure (changes).”
So the Islanders get a day to enjoy this clincher — even though it felt like so much more of a mad dash this season than last, the Isles actually clinched a game earlier than last season. They may even get the luxury of resting some regulars in the finale against the Penguins on Wednesday, even though there’s a chance that game may mean everything to their not-so-friendly rivals from Pittsburgh.
The two dozen blown third-period leads? Awful to think about, but they don’t matter now. The multiple-blown two- and three-goal leads? Horrible, but those are gone too. The stumbles of any number of longtime regulars? A fading memory, hard to know when they actually happened to guys like Lee and Engvall, who were two of the best forwards on the ice Monday, as well as Palmieri and Nelson, who are reunited and feeling quite good.
Aside from the injury concern with Dobson, the wackiness of this season is hazy now. The Islanders are in the playoffs. And they’re playing their best hockey, their best Islander hockey, that they have all year long.
“We’ll enjoy the beautiful bus ride home (from Newark), go to sleep, get up tomorrow, get ready for Pittsburgh and then get ready for whoever we got,” Clutterbuck said before the series with the Canes was assured. “It’s just crazy the way it all went down this year. It just goes to show that you’re never really out of it. We won a lot of tight games to get here and I think we really did just take it one day at a time and you just see what happens.”
It was hard, but as Clutterbuck said, whatever. They’re in.
(Photo: Ed Mulholland / USA Today)
