Month: April 2019

Of course the Islanders were going to downplay the difference between playing their home games at the Coliseum and at Barclays Center, as the venue has switched for their second-round playoff series against the Hurricanes that starts with Game 1 in Brooklyn on Friday night.

But the difference is the whole team went into the city after Thursday’s practice on Long Island — where they all live — and were set to stay at a hotel for the duration until they returned after Game 2 on Sunday afternoon. That includes a morning skate in Brooklyn on Friday (they skated on Long Island all season), a practice there on Saturday afternoon, and then staying over Saturday night, with downtime spent together in the city.

It’s not unlike what team president Lou Lamoriello did with some of his Devils’ teams, and it’s not unlike the way the Islanders dealt with Barclays Center at times since they moved there full-time in 2015-16, having just started to split games between Brooklyn and the refurbished Coliseum this season.

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But it’s still very unlike the first round at the old barn on Hempstead Turnpike, when the commute from home to rink for most players was less than a half hour.

“It’s a little bit different in the regular season; [then going to Brooklyn] is a little bit much. But in the playoffs, you don’t take anything back,” captain Anders Lee said. “We’ll be there as a team, we’ll be in the city, near the rink. It’s home ice. You might say it’s a little bit like we’re on the road, but we’re in our hometown. So it’s all the same.”

The Coliseum had been rollicking for Games 1 and 2 of the first-round sweep of the Penguins, but the club knew this was coming. In February, the NHL made the prudent financial decision to switch venues for the second round — and going forward, if need be. Now the Islanders have to go back to a rink that is far less intimidating for opponents and where they haven’t played a home game since Feb. 16.

Yet the club did get Brooklyn buzzing with two rounds of the postseason in 2016, so the players are hoping to recreate that atmosphere. And coach Barry Trotz didn’t expect any change to their game-day preparation.

“No, zero,” Trotz said. “Zero point zero, actually.”

Goalie Robin Lehner did not start in any of the four games against the Hurricanes this season, with Thomas Greiss going 3-1-0 against them with a 1.76 goals-against average and a .949 save percentage. It’s assumed Lehner will start Game 1 after playing all four games against the Penguins, and Trotz said there was “no concern” that Lehner hasn’t seen Carolina.

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As for avoiding the Capitals, whom he coached to a Stanley Cup victory just a year ago, Trotz wasn’t too disappointed.

“I was ready for it,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s a good thing not to have to keep answering the same question.”

The Toronto Maple Leafs have lost two Game 7s to the Boston Bruins in the past decade (first round in 2013 and 2018). The question entering Tuesday night is simple: Are these Leafs a different team capable of creating a different outcome? I think the answer is yes.

Toronto has been a respond-to-adversity squad throughout this first-round series. The loser of the previous game has bounced back to win the next game in this series and Toronto is 2-0 off a loss already. The Maple Leafs outplayed the Bruins in Games 1 and 5 at TD Garden and going on the road for this decisive game shouldn’t bother them.

Going into Game 7 last year against Boston, the Leafs still had a relatively inexperienced group in terms of the playoffs. This year all those players are a year older, wiser and more experienced and the additions of playoff veterans such as John Tavares and Jake Muzzin. I believe it’s the Leafs time to finally rid themselves of the demons of playoff seasons past and slay the Bruins dragon.

The pick: Maple Leafs, +120.

Henrik Lundqvist has had the Vezina Trophy on his mantelpiece since 2012, when he was selected by NHL general managers as the league’s best goaltender.

Now, the King has been named a finalist for an honor that might carry even more meaning to the charity-minded Swede. That is the King Clancy Memorial Trophy, awarded to “The player who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a noteworthy contribution in his community.”

The Rangers goaltender, Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Wild winger Jason Zucker are the finalists for the trophy, which will be presented at the NHL’s awards extravaganza in Las Vegas on June 19, two days ahead of Round 1 of the draft in Vancouver. The vote will be cast by a select committee of senior NHL executives, including Gary Bettman and Bill Daly.

Lundqvist, who has often professed his love for New York since first arriving in 2005, has backed up his words with deeds. He and his wife, Therese, have made it an unspoken mission to give back as much as possible to the couple’s — and family’s — adopted second home.

Together, the couple in 2014 founded the Henrik Lundqvist Foundation, whose HLundqvistFoundation.com homepage includes this message from the Lundqvists: “Some of us get to take things like health, education and financial well-being for granted. But they’re far from guaranteed for many. The Henrik Lundqvist Foundation’s goal is to help people all over the world who face these kinds of challenges. Support HLF, and together we’ll do just that!”

According to a release from the Rangers, the foundation and its four charitable partners have raised $2.5 million toward that end, with direct “grants and commitments of nearly $1 million supporting children’s health and education.”

The caring, 37-year-old Swede has been the official spokesman for the Garden of Dreams Foundation. According to the team, Lundqvist has hosted approximately 1,230 children and their families at games. It is commonplace for the goaltender to meet and interact with his guests in the locker room after he has finished with his postgame interviews.

Win, loss, regulation, overtime, shootout, it doesn’t matter; invariably, there is Lundqvist surrounded by children.

When we last left the Islanders, Spinner Spencer was on the left with Craig Cameron in the middle and Bob Cook on the right, Jim Mair and Arnie Brown were on defense and head coach Earl Ingarfield was refusing to divulge the identity of his starting goaltender for the next match.

Oh, so sorry, that was the 1972-73 group.

It does, however, sure seem as if it has been as long as 46 years and not merely eight days since Long Island’s team took to the ice to play a game. The waiting, though, is just about over. The Islanders, idling since completing their first-round sweep of the Penguins on April 16, should be on for Game 1 of the second round either Friday or Saturday, against the Capitals or Hurricanes, either in Washington or at Barclays Center.

“The good thing is they’re going to let us play pretty soon,” said coach Barry Trotz, who is awaiting the result of Wednesday’s Game 7 in Washington. “So we’re getting closer and there is an endpoint.”

It has been a challenge to devise a plan for what essentially amounted to a bye week after just four tournament games. The Islanders had a pair of days off, skated twice in succession, took Easter off, were on the ice the past two days, did some scrimmaging, and will take Wednesday off before serious opponent-specific prep work begins.

There is no way to measure the impact of the layoff that will send the Islanders into the next round against an opponent naturally enervated and energized at once by having prevailed in a Game 7. The Islanders, well, it’s going to be difficult to live off the adrenaline rush created by that big goal scored by, who was it, now? Oh, right, Ray Ferraro.

Their hockey minds might be littered with cobwebs, but the Islanders’ bodies will never feel better at any time during the tournament. If rules do not necessarily apply to the 2019 NHL postseason, this one does: It is never, ever, never, ever advantageous for a team to have to play even a single additional “if necessary” game. Never.

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“Fo’, fo’, fo’ fo,’ ” as Moses Lamoriello might have said.

The Caps are the reigning Stanley Cup champions, winners of 39 postseason matches the past five years. The Canes are in the playoffs for the first time in 10 seasons, ending what is tied for the third-longest postseason drought in NHL history, the 2007-16 Oilers and 2001-11 Panthers each having missed 10 straight times while the 1979-1987 Rockies/Devils also missed nine straight.

So, who would you rather play if you’re the Islanders?

The Caps would have home ice if they prevail on Wednesday, but the Islanders would have home ice — squatters’ ice, renters’ ice, whatever you’d prefer — if Carolina emerges from this throwback Southeast Division matchup.

So who would you rather play if you’re the Islanders?

Trotz knows one team intimately and the other, well, not quite so personally, even though he did coach Canes captain Justin Williams for two seasons.

So who would he rather play, ha-ha-ha-ha, as if the coach would ever answer?

“Honestly, I just want to play. I don’t have a preference,” Trotz honestly said. “I know if we play one, I know there are going to be a lot more questions directed toward me, but that’s just going to be one day of answers and then we’re going to move on.

“So it doesn’t matter. I just want to play.”

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It stands to reason the Islanders would just as soon avoid a Round 2 collision with the defending Cup champs and Alex Ovechkin, who looms as the most potent singular weapon of the playoffs. But neither rhyme nor reason has applied to this tournament.

Know this, though Caps-Canes is tied through six games, Carolina has been in control throughout the series, owning a staggering five-on-five 61 percent Corsi, a 60.7 percent shot share and a 61.33 percent XGF share. So, the matchup that stands even on the scoreboard has been severely tilted on the ice. As the Islanders played so much faster than the Penguins, that has been Carolina against Washington.

The building in Washington gets loud at this time of year and Brooklyn will raise the echoes. Neither arena will compare to the crazy place in Carolina, where the fans were able to save their vocal chords for the last nine springs in advance of becoming the latest anointed greatest (small) market in the world.

No, but which team do the Islanders prefer, the somewhat predictable one from Washington — oh, to watch Trotz scheme against Ovechkin on the power play — or the entirely unpredictable one from Carolina? Better to face the cool — meaning, hot — Braden Holtby or the (Petr) Mrazek Miracle?

Me, I’m choosing the goalie for whom it’s a miracle to be playing so well, but as far as the Islanders’ preference, well, Brian Lavender declined comment.

It was the head seen all around the world, uniting two rival fan bases in the midst.

There were the Maple Leafs, trying to tie Game 6 to clinch the first-round series in front of their hometown crowd; the Bruins desperately clinging to a lead to preserve their Stanley Cup playoff livelihood.

And one fan’s head that ensured viewers at home Sunday didn’t catch a glimpse of it.

During the final frenetic minutes of the third period, a Leafs fan clad in blue came between the NBC cameras and the ice. Every Leafs chance to tie it — all futile, as the Bruins would win 4-2 — was obscured for viewers by the anonymous male’s dark locks.

“Technical difficulties prevented us from using the main game camera for a period of time towards the end of the game,’’ an NBC Sports spokesman told Boston.com. “The replacement camera had a slightly different perspective.”

The fan wasn’t waving to his buddies at home, and by all accounts, was unaware his head had a price on it.

And yet, as one Twitter user scoffed: “The back of the head of the Maple Leafs fan may be the most hated head in sports right now #NHLHockey.“

The Islanders may not know whom they’re playing yet, but at least they know when.

The NHL announced two scenarios for the second-round schedules, one based on the Capitals winning Game 7 on Wednesday night, and one based on the Hurricanes winning. The victor of that series goes on to face the Islanders, who swept the Penguins in the first round and have been sitting around since their Game 4 triumph April 16.

The first game of this second-round series will be Friday and the second game Sunday — if the Capitals win, then they’re in Washington; if the Hurricanes win, they’re at Barclays Center, where all the Islanders’ home games will be played from here on out following a raucous first round at the Coliseum.

If the opponent is the Capitals, then the teams would come back for Games 3 and 4 in Brooklyn on Tuesday and Friday. If it’s the Hurricanes, then it would be Wednesday and Friday in Raleigh.

ARLINGTON, Va. — Capitals winger T.J. Oshie is expected to miss the rest of the playoffs after undergoing surgery to repair a broken right clavicle.

The team announced Oshie’s surgery Sunday afternoon.

Oshie was injured late in Game 4 at the Hurricanes on a hit from behind from Warren Foegele. Oshie went right shoulder-first into the boards, and Foegele was given a two-minute minor penalty for boarding.

The 32-year-old had 21 points in 24 games during Washington’s run to the Stanley Cup last year. He had 54 points in 69 regular-season games and two points in the first round before being injured.

To replace Oshie, the Capitals called up Devante Smith-Pelly from the American Hockey League before Saturday’s game — he was a hero of the team’s Stanley Cup run last playoffs with seven goals, equaling his regular-season total.

It’s unclear whether Oshie will be ready for training camp, but the Capitals will have to continue in the playoffs without him. They won Saturday and lead their series with Carolina 3-2 with Game 6 on the road Monday and former coach Barry Trotz’s Islanders waiting in the second round.

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Just because the Islanders have some young players in key roles does not mean that they’re a team totally lacking postseason experience.

As team president Lou Lamoriello was building this squad over the summer, he knew they would need some veteran presence in the locker room to offset all the youth. So he brought in two Stanley Cup champions in Valtteri Filppula and Tom Kuhnhackl, along with wily winger Leo Komarov.

It’s added a depth to the group that has helped it stay even-keeled as the Isles swept the Penguins in the first round and will face the Hurricanes after their 4-3 double-overtime win over the Capitals on Wednesday.

“I think every team is always a little bit different, but I think we have a good group,” Filppula said recently, with the team getting Wednesday off as part of what would be a 10-day break between series. Game 1 of the second round is set for Friday at Barclays Center.

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“I think we’ve been playing real well the first series, the whole way pretty much,” Filppula said. “Didn’t matter what the score was. When we were down, we played well. When we were up, we played the same way. Kind of the same way we’ve been playing all year, so I think that helped us prepare for the playoffs real well.”

Filppula, 35, won a Stanley Cup with the Red Wings in 2008 and has a whopping 162 games of playoff experience. That is the seventh-most among active players and third-most among players still around this postseason, behind only the Sharks’ Joe Thornton and the Bruins’ Zdeno Chara, both with 166.

Lamoriello signed him to a one-year, $2.75 million deal, and more so than the 17 goals and 31 points during 72 regular-season games, his value is coming to the forefront now.

“At the end of the day, playoffs is about everyone raising their level a little bit and that kind of happens to me,” said Filppula who collected four assists in the first round. “I think it happens automatically, because you’re excited to be playing playoffs. You get a little more focused than you were during the regular season. I think it’s a good sign that we haven’t really had to talk about it. We played well first game, and then just kept going.”

Kuhnhackl’s value has increased even more, having played a marginal role during his 36 regular-season games. He has seemed like a totally rejuvenated player since the playoffs started, which isn’t a surprise considering he won back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Penguins in 2016 and 2017.

Put that together with the success Trotz had winning his first Stanley Cup with the Capitals just a year ago, and the group demeanor isn’t all that surprising.

“One thing I can tell you, and I do have the experience now, you want it again,” Trotz said. “It’s sort of addicting. That’s why I think you see people win multiple times. For how long that trophy has been around, there’s not as many names on that trophy as you think. There’s a lot of repeat offenders on there. Because it’s an addicting type of thing. You want to do it again because you know you can.”

There are others in the room who have won, as well, like defensemen Nick Leddy and Johnny Boychuk — the latter out another two weeks or so (but not away from the team) with his lower-body injury suffered in Game 4 against the Penguins. Andrew Ladd, who won Stanley Cups with the Hurricanes (2006) and Blackhawks (2010), is also around a bit while he recovers from another knee injury set to keep him out until training camp.

With Trotz setting the tone behind the bench, and with a handful of veterans sprinkled through a mostly young lineup, the mix has thus far led to a preternatural postseason poise. Filppula said there hasn’t been too many young players coming up to him for advice, mostly because it seems like the collective feeling is one that is ready to get this long break over with and start the second round — no matter the opponent.

“So far, it’s been good,” Filppula said. “Now we’re just looking forward to the next round.”

Maybe the biggest beneficiary of the Islanders’ long break is winger Cal Clutterbuck, who returned to practice Monday for the first time since he left Game 4 of the opening-round series against the Penguins this past Tuesday.

The undisclosed injury could very well have kept Clutterbuck out of the lineup if the Islanders had not swept the Penguins and earned themselves more than a week off. But now with some time to heal behind him, Clutterbuck seemed optimistic about returning.

“You can look at it from both sides. Our choice is to look at it from the positive side, and that’s — myself especially — I was able to get a couple days that, had we not had the time, probably would have resulted in some lost [playing] time,” he said. “I’m just taking it a day at a time here. Felt good enough [Monday] to go practice with the guys, I felt pretty good out there. That’s where I’m at right now.”

He is also an indispensable part of what coach Barry Trotz has now dubbed the “identity line,” with Matt Martin and Casey Cizikas. Besides playing with them at even-strength, Clutterbuck is also part of both specialty units.

“I just think that when Clutter is not there, you notice. He’s such a useful player,” Trotz said. “There are so many layers to his game that when you look at the stats [eight goals, 23 points in 73 regular-season games], you go, ‘Eh, I don’t know.’ But there is more importance to his overall contribution and there are a lot of those areas where there are not a lot of stats. He’s a valuable guy for us, no question.”

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Defenseman Scott Mayfield also returned to practice for the first time since the first round ended, going right back into his spot on the right side next to Devon Toews.

“That’s what you get when you finish out a series early,” Mayfield said. “We closed it out early, guys get time to get healthy and everyone take a little rest. Rest is a weapon, I think, especially in the playoffs.”

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With the full complement of players on the ice, it seemed like Trotz was set with his lineup, including lefty-shot defenseman Thomas Hickey on the right side next to Nick Leddy.

It also looked like Michael Dal Colle and Ross Johnston would be out up-front, while Tom Kuhnhackl would stay in his role on the right side of the line with Josh Bailey and Brock Nelson.

The Islanders will be well-rested come Round 2 — their opponent not so much.

Just two days after knocking off the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals in a thrilling double-overtime clincher, the Carolina Hurricanes will head to Brooklyn on Friday for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

The Islanders, left waiting since a sweep of the Penguins on April 16,  will keep home-ice advantage by virtue of finishing four points over the Hurricanes in the Metropolitan Division standings. Head-to-head, the Isles took three-of-four from their next adversary.

Here are the times and dates for the Isles’ next series (* denotes if necessary)

Game 1: Hurricanes @ Islanders | 7 p.m. Friday, April 26

Game 2: Hurricanes @ Islanders | 3 p.m. Sunday, April 28

Game 3: Islanders @ Hurricanes | 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 1

Game 4: Islanders @ Hurricanes | 7 p.m. Friday, May 3

* Game 5: Hurricanes @ Islanders | TBD Sunday, May 5

* Game 6: Islanders @ Hurricanes | TBD Tuesday, May 7

* Game 7: Hurricanes @ Islanders | TBD Wednesday, May 8