Fair to say neither the Islanders nor Hurricanes left Game 2 of their series particularly happy with the officiating. 

What Isles coach Lane Lambert didn’t understand, though, was what Carolina was so upset about. 

After Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour went on a postgame diatribe describing a no-call on Jean-Gabriel Pageau as a “tomahawk chop” on Teuvo Teravainen — who is out for the series and requires surgery after breaking his hand on the play — Lambert defended his player on Thursday. 

“I was surprised at his comments last night,” Lambert said. “That play happens probably 25, 30 times a game. The player that was injured continued to play on for the rest of the power play. Our player’s an honest, hard player that certainly isn’t intending to injure anyone.” 

Tensions in the series ratcheted up during Carolina’s 4-3 overtime victory Wednesday, with the Islanders out-hitting the Hurricanes 54-28 by the official count.

Carolina also took exception during a scrum at the end of the first period in which Matt Martin kneeled on Jordan Staal, getting called for an interference penalty as a result. 

In the immediate aftermath of the game, the Islanders could barely hide their anger over a no-call on what looked like a Jordan Martinook high stick to Scott Mayfield’s face in the run-up to Jesper Fast’s overtime winner.

The next day, though, Mayfield brushed off the incident. 

“It is what it is,” Mayfield said. “It’s all about [Game 3] now.” 

Mayfield instead put the focus on his failure to break up the three-on-two leading to Fast’s goal. 

“Frustrated [Wednesday] night for sure,” he said. “I think that three-on-two, especially, it goes right over my stick, but if I can knock that down or get a play on it, it doesn’t happen.” 

Down 2-0 in the series, the Islanders are in desperate need of a win at home and need to stay out of the penalty box.

Game 3, the franchise’s first playoff game at UBS Arena, is Friday night. 

After taking four penalties in Game 1 and allowing two power-play goals, the Islanders spent 9:18 killing off six power plays in Game 2, taking two minors and two double-minors, though one was nullified via a Carolina penalty.

Though the penalty-kill looked much better on Wednesday, the Isles still let in a goal on a bizarre play that saw the puck take a bad hop off defenseman Sebastian Aho’s stick and go in the net. 

“Clearly we have to have an element of discipline with our sticks, a little bit more control of our sticks,” Lambert said. “We put ourselves into a couple situations that, I thought our penalty kill did an outstanding job, but for the fluke goal. We did a great job on the six that we were killing. We just have to stay out of the box.” 

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At five-on-five, the Islanders were fairly encouraged by their play after struggling in Game 1.

In the back half of the match in particular, they finally seemed to have their hands on the reins and took control of the run of play for the first time all series. 

It’s not yet known how Carolina will replace Teravainen in their lineup — Jesse Puljujarvi would seem to be an obvious choice, though the Hurricanes also called up a forward from AHL Chicago, Mackenzie MacEachern. 

Teravainen, who had 12 goals and 25 assists during the regular season and played on the top line, will be a big piece missing from a lineup already down Max Pacioretty and Andrei Svechnikov. 

“He’s getting pins in there and everything,” Brind’Amour told reporters Thursday. “It’s pretty bad damage. I know your question is, ‘Is he going to get back?’ Very, very doubtful. Certainly not anytime soon.”