NOW AVAILABLE! New York Islanders: A to Z will introduce a new generation of fans to the legendary players, magical moments, and colorful 50-year history of the Islanders.
Contributions from Brendan Burke, Stan Fischler, Chris King, and Jiggs McDonald.
You can purchase it HERE for 15% with promo code “Playoffs”
A portion of the proceeds goes to the Islanders Children’s Foundation.
Good Morning, Islanders Country.
Somehow, someway, the New York Islanders are the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference. It’s just wild. Let’s quickly run down everything that had to happen to make that possible after the Islanders lost in DC on Monday night:
Monday, April 10th
Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Florida Panthers 2-1 in OT on a John Tavares breakaway goal. A Florida win wouldn’t have allowed Isles to catch the Panthers, as they would’ve had more total wins.
Ottawa Senators defeat the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2 in regulation.
Tuesday, April 11th
Chicago Blackhawks stun the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-2 on the road, putting the Islanders back in control of their playoff fate.
New Jerseys Devils beat the Buffalo Sabres 6-2 to stay just one point behind the Hurricanes, who defeated the Detroit Red Wings 4-1.
Wednesday, April 12th
The Islanders defeated the Montreal Canadiens 4-2 in regulation, securing a playoff spot in putting them one point ahead of Florida.
Thursday, April 13th
Carolina Hurricanes defeat the Florida Panthers 6-2 to clinch the Metropolitan Division and set up a first-round match-up with the Islanders.
That’s all.
Those six games all broke exactly how Islanders fans wanted them to. This isn’t a case of “be careful what you wish for.” It hasn’t been about wanting to play the Hurricanes, winners of the Metro for three consecutive seasons. It was about not wanting to play the Boston Bruins, a team that set an NHL record for points in a season, as is on the side of the bracket with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lighting. Now the Isles get the lesser of two evils and have a more realistic shot at getting hot at the right time and making some noise in the postseason.
Coming up, we take a look back at the season series with the Hurricanes, and The Athletic gives us seven reasons why the Isles are in the playoffs. Plus, Ilya and Romy play video games, Chris Osgood played a lot of real games in 2001-02, and Boomer and Gio break down the pair of Islanders mascots.
Let’s dive in.
📰 NEWS: The Islanders and Hurricanes played four times this season, with the Carolina winning three contests, all in regulation. The Islanders played one of their better games of the season in Raleigh on Oct. 28. In that game, Josh Bailey, playing his 1,000th game, snapped a 2-2 tie in the second period, and Brock Nelson scored twice in the third period for a 6-2 win.
In their next meeting, it was a flat debut for the Fisherman jerseys as the Hurricanes shut out the Islanders 3-0 at UBS Arena on Dec. 10. The effort was there, but the Islanders looked slow against a Carolina team that was surgical in its defensive precision. The Canes dominated possession in that game as well.
After their next match-up, a 5-2 loss on Jan. 21, captain Anders Lee said, “this sucks” in the post-game, referring to the team’s awful month and inability to score more than two goals in a game. This was losing eight of nine games (1-5-3), and this was not having scored a third-period goal in those nine games. This was arguably the low point of the season, as the team had no answers and was undermanned, playing without Adam Pelech and Kyle Palmieri for a long stretch.
Their final game on April 2nd was more indicative of what we should see in the playoffs, a tightly contested game that Carolina won 2-1 on the strength of a Jordan Martinook third-period goal. Late in the third period on the power play, Bo Horvat had their best chance of the period but was denied by Frederik Andersen with the blocker.
7️⃣ GIMME A REASON: In The Athletic, Kevin Kurz provided seven reasons why the Islanders made the playoffs. Among them was Brock Nelson’s career season. The lifelong Islander led the team in goals for the fourth straight season with 36 and added 39 assists for a career-high 75 points.
He had a penchant for coming through big moments through with timely and important goals throughout the season, and that continued in Wednesday night’s 4-2 victory over Montreal to clinch a playoff spot.
“I don’t know if it’s him getting up, it’s his ability in these big moments to stay within the moment and keep his head and just really almost in some ways slow the game down,” said Anders Lee of Nelson’s ability to rise to the moment.
2022-23 was an All-Star season for the center, and the fourth consecutive year he has led the team in goals after Anders Lee did it the previous three seasons. Nelson also was durable as ever this season, appearing in all 82 games, joining Lee, Zach Parise, Ryan Pulock, and Scott Mayfield as the only Islanders to do so.
According to NHL PR, Nelson became the 12th player in team history with at least 30 career multi-goal games, and his eight multi-goal games this season are the most since Anders Lee (9 in 2017-18).
🤣 PARTY LIKE IT’S 1994: With the Isles making the playoffs, for the first time since 1994, all five local basketball and hockey teams qualified for the postseason. That’s great and all, but this time we hope for a different result as 29 years ago, the New York Rangers swept the Isles easily en route to their first Stanley Cup since 1940, beating the Vancouver Canucks in 7 games in the Final.
⏭ NEXT UP: It’s the New York Islanders and the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals is Monday night, with Game 2 slated for Tuesday. The rest of the schedule will be announced later today.
📊 STANDINGS: The Stanley Cup Playoff match-ups in the East are set:
🎮 GAME ON: This is what you call preparation. Twenty-somethings Ilya Sorokin and Alexander Romanov playing video games and perhaps previewing their first-round playoff matchup. We don’t know which player picked which team, but we have a hard time thinking that Ilya Sorokin would score on Ilya Sorokin. They’ll have to sneak in a game against the Hurricanes before practice.
📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, Brock Nelson led the Isles in goals for the fourth straight season after Anders Lee did so in the prior three seasons. Nelson led the team in assists after Mathew Barzal had led four times in the prior five seasons. He also led the team in points after sharing the title with Barzal last season. Barzal led or shared the team leads in five straight seasons, matching Mike Bossy's club record.
🗓 ISLES REWIND: On April 14, 2002, Islanders goaltender Chris Osgood set a team record for most games in one season when he played in his 66th of the year, breaking the mark of 65 games set by Ron Hextall in 1993-94. In 2020, Matt O’Leary for Eyes on Isles took a look back at Osgood’s 2001-02 season on LI.
🎧 Islanders Anxiety - Episode 243 - Most Relaxing Night of the Year “In their second emergency podcast of the week. Mike and Dan exhale as the Islanders finally clinch a playoff berth (and eliminate the Penguins) with a win over Montreal. At various times throughout the absolutely insane rollercoaster of stress that was the regular season, it looked like the Islanders wouldn't make the postseason”
🔗 They Said It Couldn't Be Done But The Islanders Did It! by Stan Fischler, The Hockey News “They showed me perseverance, grim determination, guts and comeback-ability after one of the franchise's most devastating losses on Monday night in Washington.”
And we leave you with this…on the WFAN Morning Show, Gregg Giannotti and Boomer Esiason discuss (in a lot of detail) their perceptions and opinions about each of the two Islanders mascots - Nyisles and Sparky.
For a laugh, watch the clip HERE.
Thanks for reading! Follow us on Twitter for regular updates until the next newsletter.
And please check out our newsletters about the Knicks and Mets, too.
The 1994 season is probably the only time my team (any sport) made the playoffs and in retrospect I wish it never happened.
Carolina is a bad matchup for us, but anyone who preferred Boston might be clinically insane. That's a bad matchup for us too and they are an absolute machine. Plus they don't have injury issues like Carolina does. To me, it wasn't even a choice - I'm glad it played out the way it did.