If there was a moment for the Islanders’ first-round series against Carolina to flip in their favor, that came on Tuesday night. That was also the moment when the Hurricanes had a chance to step on their opponents’ necks, and squandered it.
The Islanders came out looking flat in Game 5 in Raleigh, N.C. The PNC Arena crowd rocked and rolled. The Hurricanes dominated the puck. It was their moment. And then it wasn’t.
Instead of breakup day, the Islanders took a moment to breathe Wednesday before practice on Thursday and Game 6 on Friday at UBS Arena. They escaped Raleigh on Tuesday with a 3-2 win that qualified as part skill, part luck and part great goaltending. And the Islanders now can make that the last, best chance the Hurricanes had to put them away.
The underlying reality of the series is that, according to the numbers, the Islanders have been the better team at even strength. That is backed up by the eye test.
The Islanders have outscored Carolina 12-8 at even strength, they’ve had 54.53 percent of the expected goals and 55.66 percent of the high-danger chances, per Natural Stat Trick. The teams are closely matched, but the Islanders have proven their ability not just to hang with the Hurricanes, but also to beat them — if not for the ineptitude of their power play and the 23 power plays they have allowed Carolina through five games.
Game 5 was the first time all series in which it felt as if the Islanders were getting some luck: Brock Nelson’s goal when the puck bounced off Sebastian Aho’s face, coach Lane Lambert winning a challenge to nullify a Carolina first-period goal, Noah Dobson taking a penalty that bizarrely qualified as helpful since it got a disastrous Islanders’ power play off the ice and set up a four-on-four goal.
“I was happy to see [Mathew Barzal] score a big goal on the four-on-four there,” Dobson said Wednesday, laughing a bit, as everyone in the room was in on the joke.
Lambert is the polar opposite of loose, but the mood in the Islanders’ dressing room hasn’t changed all series. They have a quiet confidence and belief, even the morning of Game 5. There’s a good reason for that.
Except for Game 4, when the Islanders unraveled at home with a series of penalties, Carolina has struggled more often to get to its five-on-five game in this series.
The Hurricanes also are dealing with injuries to three players in its top six, pasting a lineup together with Elmer’s glue.
They also now need to win on the road to avoid a Game 7 — and they failed in the same situation last season against the Rangers.
And for all the talk about the impact of a loss on the Islanders’ core, the Hurricanes are the team that has not gotten out of the second round since 2018-19, their first season under coach Rod Brind’Amour, and there surely will be questions asked in Raleigh if they cannot put the Islanders away.
Neither team’s offensive output would qualify as great, but the Islanders have gotten to the dangerous areas more often while limiting Carolina to the perimeter, where its defensemen are content to fire often-harmless shots. If you told both teams prior to Game 1 that was how the series would shape up at even strength, the Islanders would have been more than happy to take that.
Coming back from a 3-1 series deficit with two of the final three games on the road is a difficult ask, but the Islanders are in position to do it after their win in Game 5.
“We got a long way to go here,” captain Anders Lee said Wednesday. “All we could do last night was win that game and take it from there.”
It is not easy to lose a series while winning at even strength. It is especially hard to do that while holding an advantage in goal, as the Islanders do with Ilya Sorokin.
You would never install a team down 3-2 as the favorite, but it just might be that the Islanders are a live underdog.
It just might be that Carolina has wasted its best chance — and it is on the Islanders to make certain of that.