Stefen Rosner
“I thought it was real simple. If some guys cheated the game, plain and simple. We had one line that got torn apart. I thought they cheated the game in this against good teams and we didn’t play that poorly but we had when we turn the puck over to me, the game is you’re gonna make mistakes. It is a game of mistakes, but if you make a mistake, you have to have the urgency and the desire to clean up your own mistakes. If you’re going to you know create some garbage on the ice then you better clean it up, and we didn’t we didn’t do a good job, and we get torn apart.
Those were the words of New York Islanders head coach Barry Trotz following the 6-3 loss to the New York Rangers, a game that did not mean much for his team in terms of standings, but meant a lot in terms of pride.
The line that Barry Trotz was referring to was the line consisting of Mathew Barzal, Zach Parise, and Kyle Palmieri.
Not a line that has played together often this season but due to the absences of Anthony Beauvillier (upper-body) and Jean-Gabriel Pageau (COVID-19 protocol), adjustments were made.
On the night, Barzal and Parise both owned a plus/- of -3, with Palmieri at a -2.
And although Trotz elected to call them out, it’s a team game and others struggled as well.
The debacle in the first period, in which the New York Islanders allowed three goals to New York Rangers forward Andrew Copp, all came due to a failure to manage the puck effectively.
