Islanders In Waiting Room With Season On The Line: Playoff Math Explained
With four games left, the Islanders are stuck waiting—and scoreboard watching. Here’s how the playoff math shakes out.
For the first time all season, the New York Islanders have dropped four straight games.
And it’s coming at the worst possible time.
Their latest loss — a 4-3 defeat to the Eastern Conference-leading Carolina Hurricanes — wasn’t encouraging. The Islanders were outshot 40-16 and only stayed in it because Ilya Sorokin played to his Vezina-caliber standard.
Now, they’ll have four days off before closing the season with four home games in six nights, starting Thursday against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“We got some time off. We got the holiday, see family, and spend some time with them. We’ll think about this on the way home and wash it. It’s all about the next game. We have to start getting some points to stay in our position. I don’t know what the other scores are, but you can’t drop games like this. We haven’t dropped four in a row all season. It’s not a good week to do that, but you can’t change that now.” — Scott Mayfield
Fortunately, the out-of-town scoreboard once again bailed them out..for now.
But that “for now” matters.