EDMONTON – In the eyes of a coach it was “just gutty”.
The challenge for his counterpart? Make sure it doesn’t eviscerate.
The New York Islanders suffered a loss of schedule to open the final of the Eastern Conference. On Wednesday they fell 2-0 in that series against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The 1: 2 defeat felt more like a self-inflicted wound.
It cuts deeper than the fact that Nikita Kucherov’s summer beater won it with just 8.8 seconds in regulation. The islanders played the Islanders Way. They were heavy, hungry and in your face.
They’d seen the lightning bolt reduced to nine strikers in Game 2 and smothered the most dangerous parts of the ice before seeing a 12-second brain camp with overtime in sight. Tampa posted three of their best scoring chances when the clock ran to zero. Yanni Gourde was stopped in a rush before Ondrej Palat shot wide out of the slot and Kucherov buried a Ryan McDonagh pass that could find a place in the Art Gallery of Alberta.
Barry Despite said it felt like a punch in the stomach for his islanders after responding to Monday’s 8-2 defeat.
“You saw it,” said the experienced coach about the crucial sequence. “They hit the middle, they threw it in, they switched sides, they threw it forward into the net, we missed a little cover there in the middle of the net, we duplicated it, a good game.
“Kucherov went around the net. Great pass from the corner, between two of our boys in cover. It doesn’t need a lot of windows so you saw that. “
We also saw a game that was supposed to be a lot more telling about how things go the rest of the way in the series. This was a battle. You can tell how much is at stake by the fact that Blitz may have lost three key strikers for Friday’s game: leading scorer Brayden Point, injured; Alex Killorn, who was thrown for a late hit against Brock Nelson and may face further discipline from the League; and Barclay Goodrow, who was checking Nelson in the back of his mind and possibly also heard from NHL disciplinarian George Parros.
Playing most of Game 2 with no point and killorn was challenging enough.
Blitz coach Jon Cooper said it basically kept him from line-balancing because he was forced to prioritize to keep the legs of his remaining players as fresh as possible. He’s a huge fan of icing up a line-up of 11 forwards and seven defenders and has seen his team take six straight wins with that formation within the bubble.
It allows him to rely more on his top players and find additional 5v5 shifts for Point and Kucherov alongside Cedric Paquette and Pat Maroon, but it also brings challenges when the bodies go down.
“Rarely do you lose guys in a game, let alone two guys early,” said Cooper. “They’re getting a little bit saved by the TV time off, but one thing that players always want is more Ice Age, and so games like this got what they wanted.
“It’s a brave, brave endeavor because it almost takes the final change, so try to navigate whistles, time outs, ice, but in the end it was just fine.
“That was that effort – it was just good.”
It brought the lightning to six Stanley Cup wins that franchise thirsted for. Watching Cooper celebrate Kucherov’s goal on the bench was a reminder of how much is at stake here.
Jon Cooper’s reaction to @ 86KucherovThe goal is everything. #NHLonSN pic.twitter.com/mbIX2urbpj
– Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) September 10, 2020
The islanders need to quickly put this in the rearview mirror.
They have certainly shown that they can smother Tampa the same way they had in previous rounds to get past Florida, Washington and Philadelphia. This was a missed opportunity, however, as things fell apart with the game on the line and they failed to win a 38-second 5v3 powerplay in the third period.
“We had our energy, we had our game today and we just didn’t get the result,” said Spy. “I liked our game a lot, apart from the last 30 seconds of that game. So we have to keep improving and moving on after the next game. “
New York is very well represented in this series, but the margin of error is low.
