Barry Trotz’s week-old angry words and his shuffling of the New York Islanders’ lines resulted in a historic first period Wednesday night and a cathartic victory over the Vancouver Canucks.
On Friday night, the Islanders’ road trip will continue in Edmonton, against an Oilers team playing their first game since a far more seismic shakeup.
The Islanders’ first game against the Oilers in Edmonton in almost three years will coincide with the first game for head coach Jay Woodcroft, who replaced the fired Dave Tippett on Thursday with the hosts amid an extended slide.
The Islanders played for the first time in seven days Wednesday night, scoring five first-period goals in earning a 6-3 win over the Vancouver Canucks.
Also Wednesday, the Oilers absorbed their second lopsided loss at home in as many nights, when the Chicago Blackhawks rolled over them 4-1.
By the time the final horn sounded, Oilers general manager Ken Holland said he realized he probably needed to fire Tippett, who was in his third season behind the bench.
“As the third period wound down and as I went home and I was by myself — talked to a couple people last night,” Holland said Thursday afternoon. “Got up this morning and called (owner) Mr. (Daryl) Katz.”
Edmonton, which entered Thursday with two of the NHL’s top three scorers in Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, was expected to contend for the Stanley Cup this season and raced out to a 16-5-0 start. But the Oilers are 7-13-3 since then, a stretch in which they’ve suffered seven losses by at least three goals, and ended Wednesday five points behind the Calgary Flames in the race for the final Western Conference wild-card spot.
“We’ve been up and down like a toilet seat,” Holland said.
The Islanders are also no strangers to riding a rollercoaster of emotions during what was supposed to be a season with Stanley Cup Finals potential. New York, which fell in the NHL semifinals each of the past two years, endured an 11-game losing streak Nov. 7-Dec. 5 while battling a COVID-19 outbreak.
The Islanders won 10 of their next 15 games (10-4-1), but lost three of four heading into the All-Star Break, including a 3-0 loss to the Seattle Kraken on Feb. 2, which Trotz called “one of the more disappointing games” he’s coached in his three-plus seasons with New York.
Trotz changed up the Islanders’ line, promoting a pair of enforcer types — Cal Clutterbuck and Ross Johnston — to the first and second lines. The resulting five first-period goals were the most in the opening period for New York since a five-goal first against the Winnipeg Jets on Mar. 3, 1996.
“We were embarrassed with our performance (against Seattle),” said Casey Cizikas, who scored one of the first-period goals. “We wanted to come out and prove to ourselves that we’re a good hockey team and we’re a lot better than that. I think we did that tonight.”
The Islanders haven’t visited the Oilers since Feb. 21, 2019, when McDavid scored 1:22 into overtime to lift the hosts to a 4-3 win. New York was scheduled to visit Edmonton on March 13, 2020, two days after the NHL suspended the season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Islanders did play in the Edmonton bubble during the Eastern Conference finals later in 2020, when New York fell to the Tampa Bay Lightning in six games.
–Field Level Media