The Islanders may as properly burn the tape. All 82 video games of it.
Their season, which sputtered alongside coughing up plumes of smoke like a broken-down engine, lastly got here to an finish on Friday evening with a 6-4 loss to the Lightning. Six months in the past, they had been envisioning the Stanley Cup coming to a brand new handle alongside the Hempstead Turnpike.
Now?
They’re going residence with a 37-35-10 document, and also you wouldn’t blame them for being a bit of bit relieved that it’s over.
The final 60 minutes of the season got here and went, with the Lightning coming again down 3-1 within the third interval to tie the sport on Ryan McDonagh’s purpose at 10:10 of the interval. Steven Stamkos then supplied the game-winner at 11:13 after Noah Dobson and Josh Bailey bumped into one another to create an odd-man rush, ending a season of collapse in becoming trend. Stamkos would later end off a hat trick with a purpose to seal the victory at 17:50.
Zdeno Chara’s purpose with 43.4 seconds to go minimize the result in 5-4 — and gave the Islanders a feel-good second as he scored his first purpose all season on residence ice in what is likely to be his final NHL sport — but it surely wasn’t sufficient for the win, because the Lightning responded with an empty-net purpose.
For each groups, although, Friday was about transferring on to Saturday — when the Lightning can flip their focus to the Toronto Maple Leafs, and when the Islanders can begin what is going to should be an exhaustive have a look at why that imaginative and prescient from October didn’t even come near fruition.
“Everyone’s immune methods are fairly properly shot proper now,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz stated following Thursday’s 5-1 win over the Capitals. “We haven’t practiced in without end. There’s numerous issues. We’re gonna look again at this season — and this will probably be one thing for the top of the season — it would begin contemporary. And hopefully we will get a traditional season after which we will consider if we’re ok.”
Trotz wasn’t simply referring to COVID-19, which ripped by way of the crew in the course of the first half of the season. The Islanders have been coping with a abdomen flu for the final couple weeks, which resulted in Ross Johnston being pulled from Thursday’s lineup on the final minute, with Anthony Beauvillier getting back from damage a sport early to fill in.
In a season the place issues have gone so mistaken that the unhealthy luck even prolonged to the crew’s broadcast sales space, with Brendan Burke and Butch Goring each lacking video games attributable to well being causes over the past month, that’s a darkly becoming finish.
The Islanders are left to try to work out what to take from all of it as they appear to subsequent season with an getting old roster that failed to fulfill expectations amid a season that crumbled down round them.
“You by no means really feel like you have got sufficient,” Trotz stated. “But when issues are proper, we’ve had defensemen out, we’ve had all that. I believe we’re so much nearer than 20 factors [away from contending], put it that means.”
Trotz, who will miss the playoffs for the primary time since 2014 with the Predators, admitted that doubt crept in with the crew’s struggles. Mathew Barzal made no such admission, saying that the dearth of a whole roster gave them a state of affairs that was arduous to work with.
“I believe there’s some drained our bodies in that room,” Barzal stated Thursday. “Simply plenty of mileage this yr, it felt like. Clearly not the place we thought we’d be coming into the beginning of the yr. We thought we’d be competing for the Cup and on the finish of the day, thought we had a greater second half. I believe when this roster was wholesome, we’re nonetheless one of many more durable groups within the league to beat.”
Definitely, there’s some reality in that. Precisely how a lot, although, is a vital distinction, and one which GM Lou Lamoriello might want to parse over the approaching weeks.
On the finish of the day, although, the fact is difficult to swallow. For the primary time since 2018, the Islanders will probably be sitting on their couches watching the primary spherical of the playoffs. They’ve recognized for some time that this was the probably consequence, they usually’ve recognized formally for a pair weeks.
However that doesn’t make it simpler.
“It sucks that we’re executed, however on the similar time, it’s been a problem on the physique and mentally,” Brock Nelson stated Thursday. “I’m positive guys will loosen up and get well as wanted.”
