Good Morning, Islanders Country.
I’m more conflicted about being down 1-0 in this series than I was last year, and the strange part is the Islanders played by far and away a better Game 1 this time around than they did last April.
Going into the series last year, my feeling was that Carolina was the better team but was vulnerable. This year, while I think the Isles are better, I think Carolina is the class of the NHL. Yes, the New York Rangers won the President’s Trophy, but for more than half the season, the Canes were the best team in the league and then added Stanley Cup-winning pieces around an already stacked roster.
This is why I am slightly more discouraged than encouraged heading into tonight’s Game 2. If you were to map out a blueprint of how to beat the Canes on the road, it would’ve been what Patrick Roy’s team did on Saturday, and yet, they still lost due to an inability to finish some golden opportunities.
Of course, this is me sitting in front of a keyboard, talking. What matters is that the Isles will take all the positives they can from Game 1 and use it as proof that they can play shift for shift Rod Brind’Amour’s heavily favored team.
“I’m encouraged because I thought we played a really solid game,” Roy said after the 3-1 loss. “It was a hard-fought game, but we had our chances. And I'm frustrated because we had our chances.”
Bigger upsets have happened before and will happen again.
The Islanders need to prove to themselves, the Canes, and modest pessimists like myself, that Game 1 was indicative of how this series is going to go.
