Islanders enter final game of long road trip with playoff chances still well intact
Islanders goalie Ilya Sorokin, left, and Matthew Schaefer celebrate after defeating the Canucks in Vancouver, B.C., on Monday. Credit: AP/Darryl Dyck
SEATTLE — Maybe reaching the eve of a return trip to Long Island skews perception, easing the reality that, since Jan. 7, the Islanders have been living out of their suitcases. Maybe the team’s close-knit nature truly did make time fly.
Whatever the reason, the Islanders have adequately weathered the longest road trip any of them can remember. It came to a conclusion on Wednesday night against the Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena.
“Yeah, it’s been long,” defenseman Adam Pelech told Newsday. “But, I don’t know, it kind of goes by fast in a way as well. It hasn’t been brutal by any means.”
“This is a fun road trip,” Mathew Barzal said. “As much as it is tiring and taxing on the body, it is fun being around the boys for so long. I like it on the road.”
The main thing for the Islanders is this seven-game, 16-day odyssey did not damage their playoff chances. That’s a win right there, especially when the initial perception upon the NHL schedule release in July was that this and a similar seven-game road trip in November (though watered down by starting with games against the Rangers and Devils), could be huge obstacles to the Islanders’ success.
“I didn’t try to say to myself, ‘Oh, this will be a good trip if we’re this and this, or that and that,’” said coach Patrick Roy, who deserves some credit for keeping his players both loose and focused through more than two weeks of living in hotels (albeit very nice hotels).
“Let’s play one game at a time and I think that’s what we did. If you had said to me before the trip we were going to win in Minny and Edmonton, I would say, ‘Where do I sign?’”
To be fair, captain Anders Lee probably deserves the most credit for keeping his teammates happy. He noticed right away when the schedule was released there were two off days between games in Minnesota, where he was born and owns an offseason home in Edina, and Winnipeg.
He put together a team get-together at his place, complete with a 17-on-17 pond hockey game that included many of the neighbors’ children, an outdoor fire pit and memories these players will take well into retirement.
So the Islanders came to the Emerald City with a 3-2-1 mark, meaning the final game would either stamp it as a pretty good road trip (though not in the same class as the 6-1-0 trek they finished in November against tougher competition) or a so-so trip. Again, either way, the trip was not a collapse.
It started with a 2-1 shootout loss in Nashville. A 4-3 overtime win in Minnesota followed in which the Wild were the faster team but the Islanders rallied three times from one-goal deficits. They did not play well in a 5-4 loss in Winnipeg. Yet a 1-0 win over the potent Oilers, holding Connor McDavid without a goal for the second time this season and snapping his 20-game point streak, was a highlight.
A 4-2 loss to the meh Flames was troubling before the Islanders handled business with a 4-3 win in Vancouver over the NHL-worst Canucks.
Calgary was where some players hit a wall.
“I felt it during the Calgary game,” Barzal said. “It started to feel long. Once you kind of get over that, you’re like, ‘OK, we’ve only got two more games, let’s just push through it. That Calgary game, I definitely felt a little bit tired.”
But the Islanders finally fly home on Thursday with everything they want to achieve this season still achievable. That’s a huge win.
Notes & quotes: Roy kept Max Tsyplakov in the lineup despite logging a game-low 6:43 against the Canucks after being a healthy scratch in the previous three games and five of the previous six. Tsyplakov, who entered Wednesday with one goal in 25 games in his second NHL season, started on Casey Cizikas’ fourth line along with fellow Russian Max Shabanov, a healthy scratch on Monday. “We all want him to succeed,” Roy said. “We’ll give him a little bit of excitement playing with Shabby. I know they love to play together. Shame on me for not giving him more [minutes] on Monday) but, sometimes, you do what you think is the right thing to do as a coach. We’re not always perfect.” . . . Defenseman Cole McWard and forward Marc Gatcomb were the healthy scratches.
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.
