EAST MEADOW, NY– A familiar opponent, a familiar position, a familiar setting.
The New York Islanders are back in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and will face the Carolina Hurricanes in the opening round, just as they did a year ago.
Carolina took the series in six games last year. Many are expecting a similar outcome this time around, with the Hurricanes having finished 17 points ahead of the Islanders in the regular season standings.
But in the eyes of the Islanders’, being the underdog in the series gives them an upper hand.
“There’s a lot of expectations [for the favored team],” said Islanders head coach Patrick Roy after the team’s practice at Northwell Health Ice Center on Friday. “I’m sure if you asked around who is the favorite to win this series, everybody’s going to say the Hurricanes and that the only chance the Islanders have is if their goalie outplays the other goalie. But I do believe that our team has been playing very well. We’re probably one of the better teams in the league right now, within the last 10 games. I have a lot of belief in what we’re doing and a lot of trust in what we’re doing.”
Just getting to this point could be considered an accomplishment for the Islanders.
On three different occasions during their rollercoaster season, they endured multi-game losing streaks that, at the time, seemed to spell the end. It did for former head coach Lane Lambert, who was replaced by Roy in mid-January after 45 games.
There are teams that were very aggressive at the trade deadline to make their team go the distance because that’s their language. That’s what they want. Our team is the team that goes day by day and tries to surprise a lot of people. We just go out there and play our game and worry about ourselves and see where we are game by game.
You don’t know how many of these opportunities you’re going to get and you just want to make the most of all of them. We have a great group of guys that are a very disciplined, very mature and very talented group. So, let’s go out there and lay it all on the line. Hopefully, at the end of it, we’ve done something special.
