After Islanders coach Lane Lambert tweaked his forward lines Tuesday late during Game 5 of their first-round playoff series against the Hurricanes, the question now is whether he’ll stick with the changes.
Bo Horvat came off the first line and moved to the third while Jean-Gabriel Pageau moved up as the center for Mathew Barzal and Anders Lee.
Those changes functioned as a chess move to handcuff Carolina in a matchup game it often wins on home ice.
Instead of rolling out Jordan Staal’s high-powered checking line to stop both of the Islanders’ best scorers at once, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour was forced to make a choice between Barzal and Horvat.
He ultimately chose to match up with Barzal.
That factor, though, is largely nullified in games at UBS Arena, where the Islanders have last change.
So, when they take the ice for Game 6 on Friday at UBS Arena, will the Islanders keep things the same way they finished the 3-2 win on Tuesday?
Or will they go back to the lines they had used throughout the playoffs?
“We’ll see what happens,” Lambert said. “I didn’t mind the combinations, let’s put it that way, but we’ll see what happens.”
The Islanders didn’t practice on Wednesday, so there was no chance to see line rushes, but they will do so on Thursday.
Neither of the redone lines scored or outshot the Hurricanes at five-on-five on Tuesday, but Lee, Barzal and Pageau did out-attempt Carolina 8-3.
Lambert refused to discuss anything specific regarding the Islanders’ power play, simply repeating that it needed to be better.
“We all know that,” the coach said. “We’re working on solutions. We continue to work on solutions. I’m not gonna talk about what I’m seeing from this guy or I’m not gonna talk about personnel, I’m not gonna talk about tweaks, I’m not gonna talk about entries. We have to be better. That’s the bottom line.”
The Islanders have scored just once at five-on-four in 15 tries during this series, a trend in line with their regular-season output.
They scored at an abominable 10.86 percent clip over the last 54 games of the regular season while refusing to make lasting changes to either unit as things spiraled downward.
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“I think we’re just going our best, trying to find a way to get on the board,” Noah Dobson said. “Obviously it hasn’t come easy. We’ve had our chances, they haven’t gone in. There’s times where we could be better, but [the Hurricanes] have a good penalty kill. Gotta give them credit, we just have to stick with it.”
Carolina’s Jack Drury (upper-body) skated on his own Wednesday.
The Islanders are looking to become the fourth team to come back from a 3-1 deficit in the playoffs since 2019. The 2021-22 Rangers were the last to do so, in the first round against Pittsburgh.