General

#Islanders: Our past dominance over Flyers means nothing now

#Islanders: Our past dominance over Flyers means nothing now

August 22, 2020 | 8:40pm

The Islanders did, in fact, play three regular-season games against the Flyers this season and happened to win all three of them.

But in a year like 2020, they might as well be ancient history, and the Islanders plan to treat them as such as they prepare to face the Flyers on Monday in the second round of the playoffs, with a trip to the Eastern Conference finals at stake.

“It has no bearing on where we are right now,” coach Barry Trotz said Saturday after the Islanders practiced in Toronto. “It seems like it’s years ago since we played them. We played them pretty early in the season last year. It just feels like forever. So I don’t think it has any bearing at all. There’s two pretty good teams that are going to square off. What you’re doing now really matters. What you did before has zero bearing on the effect of these games.”

The Flyers, who earned the No. 1 seed in the East with a strong seeding-round performance, locked into the Islanders matchup Friday night when they took care of the Canadiens in Game 6 to finish off their first-round series.

The Islanders were able to enjoy an extra day of rest by knocking off the Capitals in five games, and it may come in handy as they enter a series that is scheduled for two back-to-backs if it goes the distance.

Semyon Varlamov deflects the puck during one of the Islanders' wins over the Flyers this season. The Islanders beat the Flyers in all three regular-season meetings.
Semyon Varlamov deflects the puck during one of the Islanders’ wins over the Flyers this season. The Islanders beat the Flyers in all three regular-season meetings.AP

After coming through a physical series against the Caps relatively healthy, the Islanders will now face a different kind of challenge against a Flyers team that has a hot goalie in Carter Hart, an experienced coach in Alain Vigneault and a deep forward group that includes plenty of skill.

“Obviously [they’re] a team that’s playing really good hockey right now, earned that No. 1 spot in the play-in round and then had a pretty good series, so another tough matchup for us, another tough task at hand,” captain Anders Lee said. “Looking back at those [regular-season] games, we’ll be able to look at them a little bit but it’s a long time ago. It’s in the past. Both teams are in different places in their play and obviously this situation’s completely different. So we can look at it for tendencies, but I don’t think [we’ll be] looking at too much of how the turnout was and taking it from there.”

Two of the three meetings this season came before the calendar flipped to 2020 — with the Islanders winning 5-3 in October, 4-3 in a November shootout then 5-3 in February. Goals figure to be at more of a premium for this playoff series, though, with Hart playing well and the Islanders playing lockdown defense at five-on-five.

“I think both sides are going to be looking to improve upon where they stand currently and demand more from one another and expect to raise our game,” Lee said. “I think every round gets that much tougher and the intensity, the desperation, all those things we talk about all the time, they all increase as you move on.”

Though the circumstances were much different, the Islanders were coming off a big first-round series win last year when they quickly got swept away in the second round by the Hurricanes. Trotz is hoping the lack of a long layoff between series this year — compared to the nine days off in between in 2019 — can help his team keep rolling after thriving in their system against the Capitals.

“Nine days [off] is not good for any team,” Trotz said. “We just lost the rhythm, a little bit of our mojo if you will. This has been good. You get a day or two to rest up, get guys closer to 100 percent … and you get ready for an opponent.”

If you want to read more Sports News articles, you can visit our General category.

if you want to watch Movies or Tv Shows go to Dizi.BuradaBiliyorum.Com for forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com

Source

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button
Close

Please allow ads on our site

Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker!