Just over a month ago, the New York Islanders were comfortably in a playoff spot. Even after a rough road trip out to California, a concerning stretch for sure, it still didn\u2019t seem like the season was in any real peril. And then\u2026<\/p>\n
Everyone else in the Metro started surging while the Islanders floundered, going 7-10 to this point, including losing 6 of their last 7 games. The scoring went cold, while the defense fell apart and Ilya Sorokin started to look mortal, his Vezina bid likely slipping away in the process.<\/p>\n
And all of that led to Patrick Roy\u2019s dismissal. Mathieu Darche brought in Peter DeBoer with eyes towards next season. If everything worked out, he\u2019d right the ship, go 4-0 in these games, and the Isles would earn a playoff bid in Matthew Schaefer\u2019s first season.<\/p>\n
That didn\u2019t happen, though, and now Darche, DeBoer, and the Islanders will have a long offseason to start to set this team up for long-term success. That will probably be without some long time Islanders, but with an aging core and young talent along the way (Bridgeport made the AHL playoffs!), it\u2019s time to make some difficult decisions.<\/p>\n
Anthony Duclair came into the lineup for Ondrej Palat, and hopefully that was a hint that Palat won\u2019t be part of this team going forward.<\/p>\n
The Islanders went to an early power play after Josh Anderson was called for high sticking Carson Soucy, but unsurprisingly, they couldn\u2019t convert on the power play. Jacob Fowler made a good save on Kyle MacLean after the power play expired.<\/p>\n
Mat Barzal put a shot off Fowler\u2019s mask, which was the other big chance for the Islanders that period.<\/p>\n
Then, Emil Heineman was called for tripping Ivan Demidov, and on that power play, Juraj Slafkovsky whiffed in front of an empty net, and Ilya Sorokin made a big save on Nick Suzuki, the sharpest he\u2019s looked in a few games now.<\/p>\n
Anthony Duclair shot the puck high over the net while pressured in front.<\/p>\n
Scott Mayfield was boarded by Arber Xhekaj, with no call for that. Brayden Schenn came in on Xhekaj, and both of them got roughing penalties. Neither team converted on the 4 on 4, but Mayfield left the game after that hit.<\/p>\n
He did return a few minutes later.<\/p>\n
Anderson got a breakaway but missed high.<\/p>\n
Nick Suzuki then scored to make it 1-0 for the Canadiens. On that play, Matthew Schaefer took a four minute double minor for high sticking, so the Canadiens also picked up a two-minute power play after that as well. And on that power play, Demidov made it 2-0.<\/p>\n
And then Alex Newhook made it 3-0 less than 30 seconds later.<\/p>\n
Xhekaj was called for roughing, sending the Islanders to the power play, which would continue on into the third period.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens killed that power play despite one good look from the Islanders.<\/p>\n
With 11 minutes left, Casey Cizikas tipped a Mayfield shot past Fowler to make it 3-1.<\/p>\n
That gave the Islanders some life, but they couldn\u2019t get anything past Fowler before pulling Sorokin for the extra skater. They couldn\u2019t convert with the net empty, and then Zack Bolduc scored late with Sorokin back in to make it 4-1.<\/p>\n
Next, the New York Islanders will host the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday, April 14, the last game of the season and Fan Appreciation Night. All eyes will be on whether Matthew Schaefer will break Brian Leetch\u2019s rookie scoring record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just over a month ago, the New York Islanders were comfortably in a playoff spot. Even after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,227493,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-600760","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-new-york-islanders-game-recaps","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}