With his team’s season hanging in the balance, Barry Trotz was comfortable making one prediction about what this elimination scenario would bring out of them.
“You’ll get our best. Whatever we’ve got left, you’re going to get our best,” Trotz said between games of this Stanley Cup semifinal series with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Anyone who has watched his New York Islanders flourish over these last two seasons would be unable to challenge that assertion.
Under Trotz, they’ve become greater than the sum of their individual parts. An honest, in-your-face, disciplined team that makes opponents earn just about everything they get.
That’s what made Monday’s 8-0 loss in Game 5 so shocking — not only was it the worst in Islanders history, it was totally uncharacteristic for this particular group. They fell behind early on a bad bounce and then started to unravel, committing costly neutral-zone turnovers before finding penalty trouble against a power play guaranteed to punish you.
As humbling as the performance was in the moment, it amounted to an out-of-body experience the Islanders believe will be easy to put behind them. That was not really them on the ice at Amalie Arena and on Wednesday night they’re back home fighting for survival in the frothing comfort of Nassau Coliseum.
“Hopefully it’s only a 24-hour thing and just like a 24-hour flu we can get over it and move on,” said Trotz.
It’s worth noting that despite the mismatch of elite talent on display in this series the Islanders and Lightning basically played the first four games dead even. Goals, shots, scoring chances, you name it.
A toss-up.
And while it might be tempting to view Tampa’s offensive explosion in Game 5 as a sign of it finally busting through, the safest bet would be on this returning to a tight-checking, low-mistake chess match for Game 6.
It’s hard to fathom the Islanders not meeting this moment with so much on the line. It’s their season and a chance to compete for the Stanley Cup, yes, but also the arena the organization has called home for most of the last 49 years.
The Islanders speak of Nassau Coliseum with the reverence most of us reserve for a treasured family member. And as much as they’ll appreciate the upgraded amenities when they move to UBS Arena next season, they’ll never replace the electric atmosphere that’s helped tilt games in their favour at the Coli.
They’re only currently guaranteed one more.
“In a must-win game it’s awesome that we get to start off at the Coliseum,” said Jordan Eberle.
“That’s our building,” added Casey Cizikas. “[The fans are] behind us no matter what and we feed off of that energy. We love playing in that building, we love playing in front of them and that’s when we play our best hockey.
“We’re excited for the challenge ahead of us.”
By now there’s no mystery about what kind of formula it takes for them to find success against the Lightning. They need to get on the forecheck and create uncertainty in the offensive zone. They need to do everything in their power to keep the Ondrej Palat-Brayden Point-Nikita Kucherov line from dismantling them. And they need to play as much of the game at 5-on-5 as possible.
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And, ultimately, they need to maintain belief in what they do.
This is where Trotz is at his best. He’s done this before.
He was behind the Washington Capitals bench in 2018 when they erased a 3-2 series deficit to Tampa in Round 3 and went on to win a Stanley Cup. The way he’ll try and channel the energy of his players on Wednesday is by reminding them of how much a Game 7 would mean.
“How much do you want to commit to have one shot to go to the Stanley Cup Final? How much are you willing to commit? That’s really the message,” said Trotz. “Go after it, guys, because you only get so many cracks at this.”
It was earlier in this series where veteran Islanders forward Cal Clutterbuck gently pushed back on the commentary he was seeing and hearing from the outside. His team had been branded the underdog to Tampa by bookmakers and media members alike, but he didn’t think that was a particularly relevant way to view things.
“Like, everyone’s entitled to their opinion: Yes, to one person we’re an underdog. Yes, to another one we’re not,” Clutterbuck said. “I think that we just feel like we have something to prove to ourselves and that’s what we’re trying to do and so the focus isn’t about what other people think of us.
“It’s about what we need to do for ourselves and why we’re here.”
And so here they have what they’ve been looking for all along: A chance to be the best version of themselves and earn the right to play the game of their lives.
