Islanders’ Resilience After Back-to-Back Losses

EAST MEADOW — Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour told it as he saw it as his side took down the New York Islanders 2-1 on Sunday evening down in Raleigh.

“[The Islanders are] playing for their lives and I thought we looked like the team that was maybe a little more desperate,” Brid’Amour said. “That says a lot about the group.”

His Hurricanes sit atop the Metropolitan Division with 107 points, three ahead of the New Jersey Devils as of Monday morning, with a playoff spot clinched. The Islanders enjoy no such comfort, which is why such a statement might be worrisome for a team that held small cushions over the Pittsburgh Penguins and Florida Panthers in the race for one of the two Eastern Conference Wild Card spots last week.

The Islanders took no slight against Brind’Amour for what he said.

“I don’t take that as an insult,” veteran winger Zach Parise told amNewYork. “I don’t think he’d be taking a shot at us, either. We played hard and we competed. I wouldn’t say they ‘out-desperated’ us by any means.”

“He’s an honest guy,” head coach Lane Lambert added. “

The concept of desperation is more of a given at this point of the season. That cushion the Islanders had over the Penguins and Panthers is gone. That’s what two bad games in succession will do to a team that had done well to make a push without their star in Mathew Barzal, who is still not practicing with the team with four games remaining. He’s missed each of the last 18 with a lower-body injury.

The Islanders were dominated 5-0 by an old foe in the Tampa Bay Lightning down in Florida on Saturday before getting outworked over the final two periods the following night against the Hurricanes, getting outshot 35-22.

“There were things about our game that we didn’t like,” Lambert said. “We’re addressing them, correcting them, and we have to move forward here.”

Parise bristled at the idea of his team’s desperation not being there down the final stretch of the regular season, which starts back up on Thursday at UBS Arena when the Islanders take on the very same Lightning side that took care of them with ease over the weekend. Tampa also has the distinction of being the team to bounce New York from two consecutive Stanley Cup semifinals.

“It’s our season,” Parise said. “There’s really no other way around it so we have to be ready. I wasn’t around these teams [during those playoff runs] but we’re playing a team that’s been a thorn in the side for a while now. They ended these guys’ seasons a couple times so it’ll be a really good test for us.”