In an Eastern Conference playoff race that resembles a 100-yard dash for people with no sense of direction (thank you Monty Python), a three-game winning streak can completely change your season. Unfortunately, finding out what a four or five game run might do will have to wait for the Islanders as a frustrating west coast swing came awfully close to being a season-changer.
We had mistakenly written the Isles’ obituary last week after it appeared they had fallen completely out of the playoff picture in the east. A seven point deficit with 13 to play and five teams to jump over seemed insurmountable.
But the best thing all the teams in the east chasing the final spots have going for them is each other.
As the teams ahead of them keep losing, an impressive three-game winning streak by the Isles that culminated with a tidy 5-2 win in Vancouver last Tuesday night breathed some life into their post-season hopes. A few days later though, the patient was back on life support after two bitter losses in southern California saw the Isles grab only one of a possible four points.
How bitter you ask? Well, when your head coach storms off camera after a very legit question about his club’s third period problems, you know it’ s pretty bitter.
In case you missed it—and it’s gotten very little play from the New York media—Scott Gordon ended the post game interview with MSG’s Rob Carlin on Friday night after Carlin brought up the fact the Isles have been outscored by 38 goals in third periods this season (a league worst) and asked the coach how he was addressing that issue.
Instead of answering the question, Gordon demonstrated exactly how the Isles are currently addressing the problem—by folding their tent and going home. An extremely lame response to a perfectly legit question.
Now, granted Carlin wouldn’t know a hockey puck from a burnt English muffin, but for a team that essentially flies under the New York sports radar and has gotten a free pass for years when it comes to “in-depth” media coverage, the move by Gordon was childish at best. Can you imagine the fallout from behavior like that from a head coach in Toronto or Montreal? Sacrebleu! He’d be fried in the papers for weeks on end.
We mentioned in last week’s column how third periods have dogged this club the last two seasons. The cave in on Friday night in Anaheim—blowing a two-goal third period lead and losing in OT 5-4—was the seventh such effort on the season. That they managed a point meant that out of a possible 14 points in those games they’ve nailed four. At eight points out of the final spot with 10 to play, we’ll leave the math to you.
Subsequently they’ve managed only one win all season when they entered the third period trailing—a 3-2 win over the Penguins at home on Nov. 27th. The final 20 minutes have been a problem, as is often the case with inexperienced, young teams.
The gaffe Bruno Gervais made on the Ducks’ OT winner should have had Gordon far more upset than the Carlin question, as the defenseman practically handed the puck to Saku Koivu and watched the veteran center fly past him for the breakaway winner just .14 seconds in.
“It was a play that shouldn’t have been made,” Gordon said. “We had another option. Bad break or not, it wasn’t a play that had to be made.”
As bitter as the loss was in Anaheim, their frustration only mounted in LA the next night in a 1-0 loss. A microcosm of the entire season could be seen in the final minute of each one these games as the Ducks connected on the tying goal with the goalie pulled and just seconds left on Friday but the Isles’ Kyle Okposo was robbed after a great pass from John Tavares with eight seconds left and Roloson on the bench in LA on Saturday. And so it goes.
Not to beat a dead horse with Gordon over the interview bail on Friday—his club had just been outshot 15-2 in the third in coughing up the two-goal lead and scrambled to hang on the entire 20 minutes—but he had this to say to reporters about the period after leaving Carlin left staring into a camera lens with a confused grin on his face:
“They took a couple of scenery shots to beat us. It wasn’t like we gave them Grade-A opportunities to score. It was a slapshot from the blue-line that had eyes and for the most part we had coverage.”