Andrew Gross: Islanders are in quite the hole, but nothing is over yet
Pete Deboer speaks to the media after his second game as Islanders' head coach on Saturday at UBS Arena. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The “nothing is over” speech was duly given, likely without incorrect historical wartime facts, and let’s assume the Islanders believe that. They are, after all, being paid to play until the last whistle of mathematical elimination.
But the reality is this season almost certainly will end after Tuesday night’s home game against the Hurricanes. It will feel like a missed opportunity, given Matthew Schaefer’s stellar rookie campaign and goalie Ilya Sorokin’s heroic work.
The Senators did all they could to effectively end the Islanders’ playoff chances in a 3-0 win on Saturday afternoon at UBS Arena. They had a 5-for-5 penalty kill, clogged the blue line to sufficiently deny most power-play entries and yielded only three man-advantage shots.
The Islanders have games on Sunday against the playoff-bound Canadiens and Tuesday against the Metropolitan Division-leading Hurricanes, hence the “nothing is over” sentiment.
Technically, it’s true, but the Islanders need other teams to lose even if they win twice.
“No, we told them that,” said coach Pete DeBoer, who is 1-1-0 behind the Islanders’ bench. “We talked about that right after the game. Our season didn’t end today, as tough as that feels walking out the rink today. We’ve got to be prepared to take care of our business, which is win the last two games. If someone is going to beat us out of that last playoff spot, then we’ve got to make them earn it.”
If there’s some solace to Saturday’s sinking feeling of finality, it’s that for a second straight game, the Islanders looked like a much-improved team under DeBoer, power-play struggles notwithstanding.
They are playing faster. They are playing much better defensively. They are emotionally engaged in the physical battle.
It’s how they must play consistently next season, and DeBoer has a solid track record of turning things around quickly. He led the Devils in 2012 and the Sharks in 2016 to the Stanley Cup Final in his first seasons with those teams.
If the Islanders miraculously qualify for this season’s playoffs, it’s no doubt how DeBoer will have them playing in the first round.
But he likely just did not have enough time with this group, taking over last Sunday with the Islanders having lost four straight and seven of their last 10 under Patrick Roy.
“Nothing is [over] until it mathematically is,” defenseman Tony DeAngelo said. “But our effort . . . we didn’t give up anything defensively. They might have had three scoring chances the whole game. I thought we did a really good job there. We defended hard. We were closing things off. There were no breakdowns in the defensive zone.”
Whether DeAngelo will be back to play under DeBoer for a full season still is in question; he is a pending unrestricted free agent coming off a one-year, $1.75 million deal.
He’s not the only questionable return. Captain Anders Lee, who drew DeBoer’s praise for starting the game by fighting Brady Tkachuk, also is a pending UFA off a seven-year, $49 million deal. It would be a seismic shift in dressing room leadership if Lee no longer is part of the group.
Forward prospect Victor Eklund, the 16th overall pick in June’s NHL Draft, will have a chance to make the Islanders’ lineup. So might former first-rounder Cole Eiserman.
DeBoer will have plenty of time to shape the roster. For now, the focus is on these last two games, starting on Sunday against the Canadiens.
“We’re going to need some help,” Cal Ritchie said. “At the end of the day, all we can control is our next two games, and that’s what we’re going to do, and hopefully we get the help that we need to get in.”
It seems as if DeBoer’s “nothing is over” message was at least heard and processed. Bo Horvat virtually repeated what Ritchie said, and that often happens when players parrot the coach.
“Win the next one,” Horvat said. “That’s all we can control. We can’t control what happened today. We’ve got to win these last two in order to give ourselves a little bit of a chance here.”
Horvat said it as if he were really trying his hardest to believe it.
“Nothing is over”?
Probably not. But it’s all the Islanders have left now.
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.
