And now they wait.
The Islanders will have some time on their hands before Game 1 of the First Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs commences next week. At this moment, they don’t even know who their opponent will be.
New York ousted the Florida Panthers on Friday in a 5-1 Game 4 victory to take the series 3-1.
The Islanders could face the Washington Capitals or Boston Bruins, depending on the result of Sunday’s Round Robin contest between the two teams. But New York still has some time to kill before the First Round — whoever it may be against.
The team sat down for meetings on Saturday morning, but they didn’t work out on the ice. The Islanders will return to the ice on Sunday, but drawing up a concrete First Round battle plan won’t start until after Sunday.
“We’re sort of making plans,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said during a Zoom call with reporters on Saturday. “We’ve got some preliminary stuff sort of separated in our staffs. (The Bruins and Capitals) are going to play each other tomorrow, so obviously that will be a game of great interest and we’re just sort of getting things set in our schedule. We don’t even have our practice time for tomorrow as of yet and we don’t know the upcoming schedule as of yet.
“Don’t want to make too many plans, but we’re also preparing for a double scout if you will and whoever we end up playing we’ll be prepared for them.”
"When you focus and practice the right way, it usually translates into your game."
🎥 Trotz speaks to the media following Friday’s win. pic.twitter.com/xuBnqDFR1q
— New York Islanders (@NYIslanders) August 8, 2020
While it won’t be the same length of time, the Islanders will have a bit of a break between their postseason series for the second year in a row. Last season the Islanders knocked off the Pittsburgh Penguins in four games and had a nine-day break between the last game and their first contest with the Carolina Hurricanes in the Second Round.
The Islanders were swept out of the Second Round by the Hurricanes.
If there was any concern that there could be any issues with the break this year, Trotz wasn’t expressing it. The Islanders coach doesn’t believe there are many parallels between the situation last season and the one this year.
“I don’t think I can take anything,” Trotz said when asked about any lessons from last year’s break. “I can tell you what I did learn. It was a lot more fun winning in that first series than losing in the second. That’s 100 percent positive on that one.”
The Islanders will look to keep the momentum going against whoever they face in the first round.
Despite a rough second half of the year before the COVID-19 pandemic halted the season, Trotz had still been confident the Islanders were playoff bound. Now, a week into the postseason, Trotz senses that the Islanders have found their swagger from earlier in the year.
“When you’re not winning you lose swagger, Trotz said. “It doesn’t if you’re the top team in the league, somewhere in between or at the bottom. When you win you have swagger and when you don’t you have to go earn your swagger. You look at our record down the stretch, especially in those last 10 games, we didn’t have a lot of wins. We had multiple overtime losses.
“I knew we were coming out of it. I said I think we’d make the playoffs. I was pretty sure. I was pretty confident about that, because our game was trending in the right way.”
