Islanders Cannot Afford to Be Trigger Shy

With the game on the line, Carolina turned up the pressure cooker and the Islanders just couldn’t withstand it. The Canes were first on the puck at every turn, and it was a question of time until they broke through. The pressure resulted in an equalizer and then, still stunned by the last goal, the Isles lost their focus and an innocuous play led to the game-winning goal nine seconds later.

It’s Impossible to Win Without Shooting

There’s no two ways about it: the ending wasn’t pretty, but neither was most of the game on the visitors’ part. Can you truly expect to win a game in which you only take 12 shots on goal? New York was lucky to even get three goals with so few shots on Frederik Andersen. You cannot expect the Hurricanes’ number-one goaltender to have as bad a save percentage as he did yesterday (.750).

Furthermore, you cannot sit on a 3-0 lead and think you’re going to win. In the heat of battle, if you put away the sword and try to survive by parrying attacks with your shield, it will get worn out. Wayne Gretzky is famously quoted as saying: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. If you’ve only taken 12 shots in the game, you’ve missed quite a few. By putting so few shots on the net, the Isles shot themselves in the foot and slowly but surely let the Hurricanes get back into, then take control of the game.

Worse still, the Hurricanes, who are the heavy favorites to win the series, have gotten an incredible amount of momentum by scoring five answered goals; this could very well play on Islanders’ minds come Game 3. Roy will need to go back to the drawing board and make some much-needed adjustments. The first question he’ll have to answer is how his team went from taking 34 shots in the first duel to just 12 in the second one.

The saying “quality over quantity” does not apply in hockey. The very aim of the game is to score more goals than your opponent. At this level of play, often, goals will be scored when goaltenders can’t see the puck or when it’s somehow deflected on its way to the net. The bottom line is, you never know what can happen when you send the puck to the net. Furthermore, the more shots you take, the more you make the opponent’s goaltender move and tire himself out, just like a shield that cracks after withstanding too many attacks.

Could Roy Shake Up Islanders’ Crease & Turn to Sorokin?

If you’re not scoring, you’re not getting a cushion for your masked man either, which makes the game even more stressful for your last line of defense. Roy will need to make this clear to his players: put pucks on the net. When he revamped the Islanders’ defensive system, Roy knew he would be sacrificing some offensive attack, but he most certainly didn’t expect his players to stop shooting almost altogether.

Will Roy try and shock his team to its senses by making a goaltender change to start Game 3? Perhaps, but the two defeats suffered in Carolina can’t be hung at Semyon Varlamov’s door: he’s done his job so far and was the hot hand that allowed the Islanders to make the playoffs (from ‘Semyon Varlamov gave Isles 34 saves in ugly Game 2 loss to Canes,’ New York Post, April 23,2024). At the same time, Varlamov is 35 years old and even though he’s signed for the next three years, he’s signed to be the backup, not the number-one goaltender.

Down 2-0 in the series, this would be the moment to put Ilya Sorokin back in to give the number-one goaltender a chance to save his team, because, at this point, this is what’s needed: a rescue operation. Sorokin played 52 games during the regular season, while Varlamov featured in 28. The veteran has been around long enough to understand the need for the coach to make a change and the urgency of it. If he doesn’t make the change now and loses the next game, the Islanders will be facing elimination in Sorokin’s first game of the series, which would be unfair to him.

Whichever goaltender is on the ice next game though, the Islanders will not win if they do not get back to putting more pucks on net.