Month: April 2019

The next challenge for the Islanders is beating a “bunch of jerks.”

That juvenile moniker bestowed upon the Hurricanes by a curmudgeonly Canadian broadcaster helped galvanize that surprising squad all season, all the way into its dramatic 4-3 Game 7 double-overtime victory over the Capitals on Wednesday night in Washington. Brock McGinn clinched the series for Carolina.

After coming back from a 3-2 series deficit, the Canes now come to New York, where the Islanders will have been waiting for 10 days when the second-round series starts with Game 1 on Friday night at Barclays Center.

It’s been a long time since the Isles finished off their first-round sweep of the Penguins, and what comes to them now is very close to a mirror image of a team that works together and is greater than the sum of its parts.

“I think Carolina is a lot more similar to what we are,” goalie Robin Lehner said recently, with the team getting Wednesday off. “They’re very, very good defensively. They play well in all three zones. They work really, really hard.”

What drew the ire of some old-school people around the league was the way the Hurricanes celebrated after home wins, dramatic on-ice choreography after most of those 24 victories in Raleigh, finishing the regular season as the first wild card with 99 points. But they got a little more professional once they got into the postseason, which didn’t keep their boisterous fans from being behind them.

The scene at their suburban arena was outrageous as Justin Williams scored a big-time goal during a 5-2 win in Game 6 Monday, helping to extend the series. And Williams remains at the forefront of Carolina’s revival, named captain this summer before his second season back with the club with which he won his first of three Stanley Cups in 2006.

It was followed by two Cups with the Kings in 2012 and 2014 — and who can forget the way he played in the Stanley Cup final against the Rangers in 2014, en route to winning the Conn Smythe as postseason MVP — after which Williams went to Washington, where he played for two seasons under current Islanders head coach Barry Trotz.

So Trotz may not know him as well as he would have, say, facing Alex Ovechkin, but there is a familiarity there in terms of what to expect.

“If we end up playing Carolina, there’s a lot of character in that room,” Trotz had said after Game 4 in Pittsburgh. “I’ve had Justin Williams and I know his character, I know his leadership. I know that team in Carolina, you watch them, they have a lot of heart. They have some highly skilled players. They might have one of the most underrated ‘D’ corps in the National Hockey League.

“You talk about a team playing as a team, they’re playing as a team.”

That is exactly the same phrase that Trotz has batted around in describing his own team’s success in this surprising season. Just like his Carolina counterpart, Rod Brind’Amour, both men behind the benches have their players buying into a system and buying into the idea that supporting one another is more valuable than just pure talent.

“Biggest thing is we play as a team,” Trotz said. “You have to give a little bit of yourself to be part of something greater. I think everybody has given up something of themselves to be part of something great. I’ll say this, if you don’t have character, you won’t be good.”

So in this battle of wills, what could be the difference? There is the play of Lehner, who has been spectacular for the Islanders as he resurrected his personal life and career while being nominated for both the Masterton and Vezina trophies. He is matched by Petr Mrazek, a bit of a journeyman who has come into his own as the Hurricanes put on a second-half push.

Or could it be the Islanders’ long break that has them rested, generally healthy, and itching to play?

Either way, it is going to be two very similar teams going at it to see which one can outlast the other.

“Honestly,” Trotz said, “I just want to play.”

It was an easy question for Barry Trotz to answer: Do you want to see the Capitals-Hurricanes series go seven games?

“You do, you do,” the Islanders coach said after Saturday’s practice, as his team awaits the winner of that series following a first-round sweep of the Penguins completed on Tuesday. “Every game takes a little piece of you.”

Trotz recalled 2015, when he was coaching the Capitals and they were forced to go seven hard-fought games before beating the Islanders in the first round. When they moved on to face the Rangers in the second round, they felt the effects and lost in Game 7 when Derek Stepan scored 11:24 into overtime.

“We were exhausted,” Trotz said. “We actually won the first two games, and as they started getting their game together, we started falling apart a little bit.”

This Capitals team has already lost skilled winger T.J. Oshie for what likely will be the rest of the playoffs with an apparent shoulder injury, while the Islanders are resting and getting healthy.

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Winger Cal Clutterbuck and defenseman Scott Mayfield missed practice for the second straight day for “maintenance” on undisclosed injuries, which are not expected to keep them out for the start of the second-round series. It’s possible Mayfield might return for practice Monday after the whole team gets Sunday off.

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“Right now, there’s nothing major,” Trotz said. “They’re irritant type of things that we can get a handle on it.”

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Trotz put his team through a hard practice Saturday that lasted close to 90 minutes, trying to keep them in shape and engaged for what could end up being more than a weeklong break.

“We’re not going to let our competitive juices and our work ethic lessen,” Trotz said. “This group is not scared of work. There are groups in the past that maybe didn’t know that. This group doesn’t cut corners, they go at it pretty good. That’s why I’m not worried.”

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Defenseman Thomas Hickey is more than likely coming in for the injured Johnny Boychuk, who will be out 3-4 weeks after an apparent left-leg/foot ailment suffered in Game 4 against Pittsburgh. It seems Hickey will return to his spot on the right side of the pair with Nick Leddy.

That would put lefty-shooting Hickey on his offside, but all the extra defensemen are lefty-shooters, so someone was going to have to move.

We know now that what Barry Trotz told the Capitals on Nov. 26, 2018 had a ring of clairvoyance to it.

“You can do it again, too,” Trotz said that day in an emotional address to his former team in the visitors’ room at Barclays Center upon picking up his Stanley Cup jewelry before his Islanders faced the reigning champs for the first time this season.

“You’ll have to go through the f—ing Island, OK? But you guys can do it again. I sincerely say that. I’m going to try to do the same thing on the Island. We’ve got lots of work to do to hopefully have the same memories on the Island as I always will with you guys.”

Five months later, the only way for the Caps to repeat is to go through the [fill in your own expletive] Island. Washington was two victories away from advancing to Round 2 before losing Thursday night’s Game 4, 2-1, to the Hurricanes in Raleigh, N.C. If the Capitals do advance, a very familiar face will be in the way.

So, on Thursday morning at an otherwise quiet facility as the Islanders enjoyed their second day off in the wake of completing their first-round sweep of the Penguins on Tuesday, Trotz revisited and contextualized the speech he made to Alex Ovechkin, John Carlson, T.J. Oshie and friends a few days after Thanksgiving.

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“It was from my heart,” said the coach who had been behind the Caps’ bench for four seasons before last summer’s departure. “The Capitals have virtually the same team. I know all that background with that group of guys, and I’m always going to have a very special bond with them because we climbed the mountain together.

“And I said to them, you’ve got the ability to repeat, you’ve got the knowledge, you’ve got the backbone. What I also said is that I want to bring that same joy and experience to the Islanders. And if you’re going to repeat, I hope you have to go through us because that would mean we were able to get to the point where we have the experience.

“Do I want to beat them? Absolutely, 100 percent, because I want to have the same experience and win the Stanley Cup with this group. So [Nov. 26] was from the heart and I meant it and still mean it and that won’t change. Now I’m going to be asked about it 1,000 times the next two weeks if we play, but this will probably be my last statement on this other than the first time I’m asked by the Washington crew.”

Do not misunderstand. Trotz is not overlooking the Candy Canes as a potential opponent. Indeed, he and his staff are on a dual scouting track as the organization attempts to best plot its time until the start of the next series, which could be delayed until April 25 or April 26 if any of the ongoing first-round matchups go seven games.

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“We spend a lot of time on doing what we do. That’s primary. That’s the most important thing,” Trotz said. “But then, we spend a lot of hours on the prep work for an opponent in the playoffs. You don’t want to miss anything. You want any little edge. I obviously know Washington fairly well, so it’s weighted, but I’m watching Carolina, who I don’t know quite as well. We’re preparing for both. It’s double the work, but I think it’s actually a good exercise. It keeps you sharp on both sides.”

Trotz has coached 20 playoff series, beginning with the 2004 first round, which his Predators lost in six games to the Red Wings. Before last year’s tournament, his teams in Nashville and Washington had won five rounds and lost 10, going 4-4 with home ice. The 2018 Capitals and the 2019 Islanders have leveled the coach’s bar at 10 rounds won, 10 rounds lost. After 117 playoff games behind the bench, he’s over .500 for the first time at 59-58.

“You let yourself savor this and enjoy it at some level,” he said. “You know, getting into the Stanley Cup playoffs is a privilege, not a right. And you don’t take it for granted because you don’t know if you’re ever going to be here again. That’s just the way it is.

“It’s a hard league. It’s hard to get in the playoffs. But once you get there, you see that anything can happen.”

Such as Washington or Carolina having to go through the [expletive deleted] Island to get to the Eastern Conference finals.

That’s a clown accusation, bro.

Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant channeled Las Vegas native Bryce Harper while calling out San Jose counterpart Peter DeBoer ahead of Tuesday’s Game 7 of their chippy first-round playoff series.

DeBoer had charged Monday that Gallant has been yelling at opposing Sharks players from the bench during games earlier in the series.

“For that clown to say that in the paper yesterday, it’s not right,” said Gallant, who denied any trash talk with the Sharks. “If I’m going to be a chirper and a loudmouth, I think people know me as a coach and respect me as a coach.

“If he’s going to yap about that, that’s a little unclassy for me.”

DeBoer, the former Devils coach, had contended Monday that Gallant has initiated contact with Sharks players throughout the series.

“There’s still chatter. Their coach is chattering. He’s probably doing the most chattering,” DeBoer said. “He’s talking to our players constantly during the game, which I haven’t seen before.

“That’s probably where most of the chatter’s coming from now. The players are playing.”

Gallant added that DeBeor likely misheard him yelling at the officials, not the Sharks.

“(San Jose forward) Logan Couture, I thought it was an embellishment (on a penalty), so I’m yelling at the referee, not at Logan Couture,” Gallant said. “The other one, Game 2, (Sharks forward) Evander Kane’s yelling at Ryan Reaves between the bench, and Evander yells at me and says, ‘Hey coach, when are you going to send your big guy on the ice and play him, what, four minutes?’ I said, ‘He’s played 10 minutes every game and he’s going to play a lot more.’ (Those) are the two times.”

PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Flyers are covering a statue of singer Kate Smith outside their arena, following the Yankees in cutting ties and looking into allegations of racism against the 1930s star with a popular recording of “God Bless America.”

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Flyers officials said Friday they also plan to remove Smith’s “God Bless America” recording from their library. They say several other songs performed by Smith “contain offensive lyrics that do not reflect our values as an organization.”

The Yankees suspended their use of Smith’s recording during the seventh-inning stretch amid conflicting claims about several of her songs, including a 1939 song “That’s Why the Darkies Were Born.” The tune originated in the 1931 Broadway revue “George White’s Scandals,” and was considered satire at the time. Smith’s likeness also appears in a 1939 ad that heavily uses the mammy caricature, one of the most well-known racist depictions of black women.

Smith died in 1986.

Smith’s connection with the Flyers started in 1969 when a team executive ordered her version of “God Bless America” to be played instead of “The Star Spangled Banner.” That led to her performing the song several times before games in the 1970s.

The Yankees have used her recording of “God Bless America” and sometimes live singers during the seventh inning since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They have used her version twice this season and have mostly played an organ version.

So the playoffs have become exactly the free-for-all the NHL has attempted to engineer for years. But it is far too easy to allow Tampa Bay and Calgary, first-seed losers, off the hook by citing some amorphous concept of randomness. Well, certainly Tampa Bay.

The Flames, blitzed in five by the Avalanche despite heroics by Mike Smith in goal, are a different case than the Lightning, having come essentially from nowhere (84 points last year and one playoff round victory since 2004) to post 107 points and win their division with an up-tempo, attack mentality that became reckless under tournament and Colorado pressure.

Calgary young guns Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan were nowhere to be found, while Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon (as dynamic a talent as there is in this league), Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen were everywhere doing everything. That’s obviously a simplistic overview of the five-game series that ended in a 5-1 rout on their home ice Friday, but the Flames simply were not ready for the moment. A shame, but no shame, for it is early in their evolution.

The Lightning, on the other hand, well, the Presidents’ Trophy winners embarrassed themselves, imploding under the duress inflicted by a hungry band that reasserted a junkyard-dog mentality and identity largely lost since that 16-game winning streak midway through 2016-17 while buttressed by high-end talent and brilliant work from my pal behind the Columbus bench.

Tampa Bay is now in that sweet and sour spot occupied by many big time teams throughout NHL history that stubbed their toes just as they were about to scale the summit. Some made it to the top. Others fell off the precipice to their demise. None of the successful teams, contrary to popular opinion, simply stayed the course.

The Red Wings of the ’90s are often cited as a precedent by which the Lightning can take solace — Detroit having lost a shocking 1-8 first-round to San Jose in 1994 before getting stunningly swept by the Devils in the 1995 Cup finals and being pummeled by the Avalanche in the 1996 conference finals in the NHL’s Last Vicious Series. The Red Wings, of course, then won the Cup in 1997 and 1998.

But though Detroit didn’t blow the whole thing up, in the parlance of the day, the organization made a dramatic move that turned the team from marshmallow talents into a collection of men of steel, and that was the trade for Brendan Shanahan a couple of days into 1996-97. Shanahan merely changed the course of history for the Red Wings, who never would have won without him.

When the Islanders of the late ’70s were first bullied out of the 1978 tournament by the Maple Leafs then taken out by the Rangers in the famous 1979 Battle of New York, there was much chatter about Al Arbour’s inability to win big games. Radar was never questioned again once general manager Bill Torrey pulled the history-making trade for Butch Goring at the 1980 deadline that triggered the dynasty.

The Capitals, who stumbled repeatedly climbing the rungs over the previous decade-plus since Alex Ovechkin’s arrival in D.C., made three coaching changes — from Bruce Boudreau to Dale Hunter to Adam Oates to Barry Trotz — between their first pratfall in 2010, as 121-point Presidents’ Trophy first-round losers in seven to Montreal, and their Cup victory a year ago.

So no, none of these teams won without making dramatic changes.

The loss of Victor Hedman, obviously compromised before he missed the last two games, played a role, and so did Julien BriseBois’ failure to fortify the depth on defense at the deadline. We are told the freshman GM was more than a bit snooty in fielding calls at the time, but the absence of a better seventh defenseman was not dispositive in the series.

Ryan McDonagh, who had such a good year, had perhaps the poorest playoff series of his career. By the way, remember when J.T. Miller was going to provide the talented Tampa’s the grit and physical element to create the time and space necessary to succeed in the postseason? No? Lightning coach Jon Cooper probably doesn’t either.

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The Lightning were beaten to the metaphorical punch across the 200×85. Columbus’ talent and rigid discipline overwhelmed a team and a coaching staff that never came close to coming up with an adequate response. It certainly did not help matters that Sergei Bobrovsky outdid Andrei Vasilevskiy.

In 2015, the Lighting lost the Cup finals, in 2016 lost the conference finals, in 2017 failed to make the playoffs and in 2018 lost the conference finals by being shut out in Games 6 and 7 by Washington after taking a 3-2 series lead. Now this.

Even if BriseBois wanted to, he could not stand pat in this cap era. Brayden Point, maybe a bit more noticeable in the series than Steven Stamkos but maybe not, is going to get a massive raise, either voluntarily on the team’s part before July 1 or through an offer sheet that may be on the horizon. In order to accommodate that increase, surely the GM will attempt to move Miller’s $5.25 million-per obligation for the next four seasons. Ryan Callahan will likely be a buyout.

Tampa Bay has been a very good team for a fairly significant amount of time. But they have not been quite good enough to meet the biggest moment. If management wants to believe the club’s failure is simply a result of arbitrariness or randomness of the playoffs, or — and I love this one — just a bad week at the wrong time, then well, we’ll meet the Lightning here same time next year.

Pondering the playoffs, still nine combined victories away from Islanders-Leafs after Toronto failed to take care of business Sunday:

1. Lou Lamoriello has never by policy moved pending free agents as rental properties at the trade deadline. The Islanders general manager long ago explained he had become accustomed to losing players through graduation during his first life as coach/athletic director at Providence College, so NHL players going free was just a part of the natural order.

He and the Devils had Doug Gilmour leave after the playoffs in 1998, Vladimir Malakhov (obtained as a rental) and Claude Lemieux in 2000, Alexander Mogilny in 2001 and Bobby Holik in 2002. Big-time guys. But Lamoriello was convinced those teams had a shot to win.

And so it is that his Islanders, still awaiting to learn the identity of their Round 2 opponent, with the Caps going for the kill against the Hurricanes in Monday’s Game 6 at Raleigh, are carrying four marquee pending free agents on the roster.

There’s been a fair amount of talk about Anders Lee, expected to stay; Jordan Eberle, expected to depart; and Brock Nelson, also expected to stay but whose strong season and outstanding tournament work against Pittsburgh has thrust him into potential open-market prominence.

But the Vezina nominee is a pending free agent, also, and there has been relatively little talk about Robin Lehner’s future beyond Game 1 of Round 2.

There was, early in the season, much chatter throughout the industry linking the Islanders to Columbus’ impending free-agent netminder Sergei Bobrovsky, who is believed to be seeking a deal that will at least match Carey Price’s $10.5 million per in Montreal. There would seem no reason whatsoever for Lamoriello to be in on Bobrovsky, who likely will land in Florida.

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Lehner, of course, has been a revelation working on the one-year, $1.5 million contract he signed last summer following an unhappy three-year experience in Buffalo. His price will certainly and meritoriously skyrocket. The Islanders, with as much as $35 million in anticipated cap space before dealing with any of their pending UFA’s, can certainly pony up.

But even if Lehner gets to July 1, where would he go? Is there a team other than the Panthers seeking a No. 1? Maybe Ottawa, but that’s where the netminder started before being sent to the Sabres. Loyalty and appreciation aside for the way the organization responded to Lehner’s personal and medical needs, Lehner is likely to stay because the options seem less than limited.

Maybe that is why there has been so little talk about this situation.

2. So we can start the watch on the Rangers’ interest in Winnipeg’s pending free-agent right defenseman Jacob Trouba manifesting itself in trade talks, the Jets having been KO’d in six by the Blues.

Winnipeg, the organization that built almost exclusively through the draft, is about to get hammered. Trouba, who had an extremely contentious second-contract negotiation that bled into the start of 2016-17, is a Group II with salary-arbitration rights; wingers Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor are Group II’s without arbitration rights who will nevertheless command massive increases coming off entry-level contracts; and defenseman Tyler Myers is a pending UFA.

Trouba, who turned 25 in late February, is likely to command $7 million a year. The Rangers will be among those wanting to give it to him.

This, I believe, would suit the Blueshirts just fine on their 2019-20 right side: 1. Trouba; 2. Adam Fox; 3A. Tony DeAngelo; 3B. Neal Pionk.

The Jets, in their elimination game in St. Louis on Saturday, were able to muster just 22 five-on-five shot attempts through 40 minutes while outshot 22-6 at full strength. They neither had enough nor got enough.

3. Yes, the Bruins most certainly did take it up several notches and got a big-time performance from previous non-factor Brad Marchand, but Toronto did little to assert itself through 50 minutes Sunday.

4. Of course the contract must be negotiated, but Mats Zuccarello remaining in Dallas seems like a pretty reasonable proposition as long as the Stars are willing to cede their 2020 first-rounder to the Rangers as compensation.

Zuccarello, immediately both productive and popular, would presumably demand a no-move clause to protect him against exposure to the 2021 Seattle expansion draft but that should not be an issue, the Stars appearing not to have protection problems.

5. How about Calgary’s James Neal, scratched for the Game 5 elimination match against Colorado without a point in the series after finishing the first season of his five-year, $5.75 million per contract he signed last summer as a free agent. Seven goals, 12 assists and 19 points in 63 games?

The winger wasn’t even motivated enough to cheap shot anyone.

PITTSBURGH — A victory for the Islanders was a wave goodbye for the summer to the Coliseum.

The Islanders completed the first-round sweep of the Penguins by way of a 3-1 win in Game 4 on Tuesday night, so there will be no more postseason games this year at the Coliseum. As decided by the NHL, the club will play its home games for the second round — and any other rounds necessary — at Barclays Center, where they haven’t played a regular-season game since Feb. 16.

The Coliseum was a rollicking venue for Games 1 and 2 of this series, and likely would have been again if Game 5 had been necessary for Thursday night. But now the Islanders leave for their more modern and sanitized urban home.

“I think no matter where we play, even when [the new arena at] Belmont comes, you’re going to miss a piece of the Coliseum,” veteran Matt Martin said. “There’s just so much history there, it’s such a big part of what the New York Islanders are.”

The Islanders split their time this season between the two venues, and went 12-7-1 in Brooklyn, compared to 12-7-2 at the Coliseum. Since the first move to Barclays in 2015-16, the Islanders are 78-48-18 on Atlantic Avenue.

“It’s been a little bit since we played there, but we’ve always had success there,” Josh Bailey said. “I think having our fans behind us, whether it’s the Coliseum or there, they’re going to find a way to create a great atmosphere.”

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The only other postseason series the franchise has won since 1993 came at Barclays in 2016, when John Tavares beat the Panthers with a goal in double-overtime of Game 6. They then lost to the Lightning in the second round.

“I’ll be honest with you, I enjoyed Barclays Center in the playoffs,” Martin said. “Our fans filled it up and made the noise and made it loud. They’ll be doing that again, I guarantee it.”

This regular season, the Islanders had the worst attendance in the league, averaging 12,442 per game — and that with 97.1 percent capacity at the Coliseum, which holds only 13,971. The split made things complicated, as did the plan that the new arena at Belmont Park could be open for the 2021-22 season, with a hopeful groundbreaking later this summer.

“Regular season is tough,” Martin said. “You have people from Suffolk County — we’re playing Tuesday night in Barclays Center, it’s a tough game to get to.

“But our fans live for the playoffs, we live for the playoffs. They’re going to be there. We need them there. They’ll be loud, I have no doubt about it.”

The capacity at Barclays Center is 15,795, with a number of those seats having obstructed views. But with close to 100 luxury boxes, compared to fewer than 10 at the Coliseum, the financial disparity is huge.

As for on the ice — the surface has drawn plenty of criticism — the Islanders are just happy their fans get to see them move on, no matter where the games are.

“I don’t think it matters where we play, our fans will be there,” Martin said. “They’ll show up and they’ll be loud. And we’re excited for it.”