Calm, cool, collected, assured.
That’s the feeling around the New York Islanders locker room despite facing an 0-2 hole after dropping both home games at the Barclays Center in their second-round playoff series against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Those first two games in Brooklyn featured just one Islanders goal, which technically didn’t even come off their own stick as Mathew Barzal’s pass in front of Petr Mrazek’s net was deflected in by Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin.
The offensive struggles have not come without their tantalizing chances.
There have been goals by Barzal, Ryan Pulock, Jordan Eberle and Devon Toews disallowed during the series and there were three posts hit in the third period of Game 2 alone as the Islanders tried to scramble back from a 2-1 deficit.
That’s just the way the puck bounces, sometimes — a harsh reality that the Islanders have easily accepted over the past few days.
Now they’re using it as fuel for the fire as they prepare for Game 3 tonight in Carolina.
“That’s the way it goes sometimes,” veteran winger Josh Bailey said following Game 2. “It could be 2-0 us, it could be 1-1. Unfortunately, it’s 0-2. We can’t get down on ourselves. We still feel good about our group and have confidence that we can turn this thing around.”
The lack of panic derives from head coach Barry Trotz, who continues to keep his rather inexperienced squad level-headed throughout the adversity.
“Your initial emotion after a game where you feel like you played well enough to win the hockey game and you don’t, I think there’s some frustration for a few minutes and then I think confidence grows out of that and you go, ‘You know what? We’re fine. Just play our game and we’ll win the series,’” Trotz said. “We dug ourselves a hole. We’ve been resilient all year.”
The Islanders have not lost three consecutive games all year and Trotz doesn’t plan on seeing it happen for the first time tonight.
“We’re going to Carolina to win two games, plain and simple,” he told reporters on Monday. “You can’t win two unless you focus on the first, so we’ll focus on the first and go from there.”
Historically speaking, teams that have taken a 2-0 playoff series lead have gone on to advance 87.2 percent of the time. That leaves the Islanders with a skinny 12.8 percent chance to come back from this deficit.
Luckily for the Islanders, Trotz has already done this once, leading the Washington Capitals back from an 0-2 hole last year in the Eastern Conference first round against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The eventual Stanley Cup champions also dropped those first two games at home.
New York will head to Raleigh to meet back up with a Hurricanes team which is plenty hobbled. The unsolvable Mrazek, along with defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk and forwards Jordan Martinook, Michael Ferland, Andrei Svechnikov, and Saku Maenalanen, are all nursing injuries.
A shorthanded Carolina side with backup goalie Curtis McElhinney, who stopped all 16 Islanders shots in relief of Mrazek in Game 2 — his first appearance in 22 games — could be ripe for the picking should the Islanders recapture their scoring touch.
“You’ve got to respond and you’ve got to dig in. We have another level,” Trotz said, per the New York Post. “There are some players on our team that have another level of focus, another level of commitment — all those things, that’s necessary to win. You can’t have any passengers. We’re going to have to go in there fully committed, and if we do that, it gives ourselves a chance to have success.”
