No Quit In New York Moves East
The Islanders resiliency has come to the forefront the last two games.
The New York Rangers once had a hashtag that read “NoQuitinNY.”
Well, it looks like that hashtag hopped on the LIE and made its way to the team on Long Island.
For a second straight game, the New York Islanders were a resilient bunch, overcoming a third-period 2-0 deficit to win 4-2.
First, it was against the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers on Sunday.
Last night, they did it against the Pittsburgh Penguins, a team also fighting for the second wild-card spot.
It’s something about this time of the year when the pressure is as high as ever.
It’s funny. Even when the Islanders seemed done, more so since we returned from the 4 Nations break, Patrick Roy’s brought up last season and the resiliency they showed down the stretch.
Given what we’ve seen all season, you just had a hard time thinking this Islanders team, the one without Mathew Barzal and now Brock Nelson, would be able to pull off the magic act again.
But here we go with these last two outings, the last one without Alexander Romanov due to illness, and there’s a newfound life.
“We just need to be resilient. And that's who this group is,” Islanders head coach Patrick Roy said. “They're very resilient. I mean, it's a great group. They care. They want to win and they came into that third period playing the exact same way. Like a good sign is even when it was 4-2 us, they kept going at them. They kept going. And that's the culture that we try to put in place, and I love the way the guys are playing right now.”
Roy’s had the same message all year to his group through all the ups and downs. Trust the process and trust the work, and they’ll lead to results. Now, those words haven’t come to fruition in the win-loss columns despite strong play at times.
But, now more than ever, seeing the hard work truly pay off in crunch time can be a mental weapon to catapult a team forward.
“I want a positive message. I’m not afraid to say what I have to say when I have to say it,” Roy said. “But overall, it has to be positive. The guys are working hard, and they are doing a lot of good things. And I think it's a moment for us, as a group, to stay calm and then believe in what we're doing, and things will turn around. That's exactly what happened. I feel like on 5-on-5, we're playing very well structure-wise, we’re forechecking well, our neutral zone forecheck is solid…we played well in these zones. We had a lot of good puck posession, a lot of good looks. So, I mean, we just need to continue to do that. And I believe that, at some point, it's got to turn our way. It's nice to do to teams what some teams did to us early on and find ways to come back and win games in the third period.”
Two games. That’s all it’s been.
But three points back instead of four seems a heck of a lot closer.
And that’s because it is. In theory, the Islanders no longer need two wins to match the other team in points. But we see how the standings can change on a nightly basis, and we also know the Islanders have to, at the very least, keep doing what they’ve done over these last two outings.
Up next is the Montreal Canadiens, who have points in 10 of their last 11 games (8-1-2). They’re coming off a comeback win of their own, entering the third down 2-1.
They tied the game, then gave up the lead again before a power-play goal and two empty nets led to a 6-3 victory to take the Rangers’ spot as the second wild-card team…for now.
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While Islanders fans’ confidence has wavered the entire season, the players never gave up on themselves or their teammates. Like Roy, they point to last year and know that making the playoffs is very much possible.
“I don't think [our confidence] has wavered at all for us,” Islanders forward Kyle Palmieri said. “The group in here, we believe in each other, we believe in the spot we're at. We know we're capable of getting ourselves back into this race and finding a way to get in there. So I think nothing's really changed. I think that outside noise that's kind of been around all year. I think it hasn't wavered our confidence in this group, and we're excited to rise to the challenge here coming down the stretch.”
As mentioned, confidence can be a dangerous team.
A win on Thursday, if results go their way, could see the Islanders just one point back of the wild-card spot with 15 games to go.
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