Andrew Gross: Islanders not panicking despite losing playoff position
MONTREAL — Here are some fundamental differences between the Islanders’ reality and any outside perception of what that is. It’s not about panic or feeling like the season is on the brink but having the requisite urgency. And it’s never about tomorrow or yesterday. Only today.
In this case, it was a hyped and much-anticipated Saturday night match against the Canadiens at Bell Centre with seemingly all of La Metropole spending the day prepping for the 7 p.m. faceoff. Islanders’ fans, too, as there were plenty in town.
The conclusion of this three-game Canadian swing came after Thursday night’s, last-second 3-2 loss in Ottawa that knocked the Islanders out of a playoff spot for the first time since Dec. 4 and 24 hours before Sunday night’s match at UBS Arena against the surging Blue Jackets, who passed them for third place in the Metropolitan Division on Thursday.
So it was very easy for a non-skating scribe or a devoted fan to breathlessly assign a make-or-break designation to the two matches.
Just don’t expect the Islanders to analyze it the same way.
“Sure, I understand,” defenseman Tony DeAngelo told Newsday about the outside perception. “I never get on a ledge. The only time I’ll get on a ledge is if there’s no room to come back. But not much of a panic. We just have to have a little more urgency. It’s not that I don’t think we were urgent [Thursday night]. I just think there’s another level to get to. Guys understand that. There’s 13 games left, not every game is going to mean you’re in [the playoffs] or you’re out. You’ve just got to be on the right side. The urgency needs to be there for the next 13 games.
“It’s definitely different now. It’s the most exciting time of the year. Obviously, everybody wants to be a team that’s already clinched. We’d like to be at 105 points like Colorado [the first team to clinch a playoff berth]. But this is an exciting time. These are the games that mean the most. That’s why we play. That’s why we come to the rink.”
Coach Patrick Roy adjusted his forward lines in hopes of sparking more production — and, yes, urgency — out of the Islanders’ five-on-five play after Thursday’s third-period failure. The Senators outshot the Islanders, who couldn’t hold a 2-1 lead, 11-1.
“It’s just a matter of will and want,” Bo Horvat told Newsday. “At the end of the day, we just didn’t do what it took to win at that moment. We were trying, maybe, to hope to get it to overtime instead of taking it to them. It’s not good enough on our part at this time of the year.”
So Anders Lee’s power forward skills went to the top line with Horvat and Mathew Barzal. That meant Emil Heineman switched to Brayden Schenn’s second line with Anthony Duclair. In turn, that allowed Simon Holmstrom to reunite with third-line center Jean-Gabriel Pageau with Ondrej Palat being elevated from the fourth line. And Casey Cizikas started between Cal Ritchie, who skated with Pageau the previous three games, and Marc Gatcomb, a healthy scratch the last three games.
Roy had no issues dissecting, player by player, his thinking in re-arranging the lines.
But when Newsday asked him how the decision was made to start No. 1 goalie Ilya Sorokin against the Canadiens and whether that meant backup David Rittich would start Sunday against the Blue Jackets, Roy cut off the discussion.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, we’re playing in Montreal tonight,” said Roy, usually very forthcoming in announcing his goalie rotation, sometimes games in advance.
Roy would only confirm Sorokin’s start against the Canadiens.
“Can we leave it to that?” Roy said. “We’re going to focus on tonight’s game. Like we said all year, we’re going to focus on the first period and, after that, we’re going to focus on the second and then we’re going to focus on the third. And if our mind goes somewhere else, we’re going to bring it back to the present moment. We’re going to stay in the present moment. That’s what we’ve been doing all year.”
Fair enough, though this could also be interpreted as Roy is at least thinking about starting Sorokin against the Blue Jackets as well. If so, it would be the first time this season Sorokin has done so (Rittch started back-to-back games on Dec. 27-28 with Sorokin out with a lower-body injury).
But that is a Sunday question. On Saturday, Roy came to the rink and immediately liked what he saw during the morning skate.
“Every time I see joy and swagger, it makes me comfortable,” Roy said.
The outside perception may be that things are uncomfortable for the Islanders. But that’s not their reality.
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.
