The waiting is over. The next step in the rebuild is about to be taken. The New York Islanders will begin their pursuit of Lord Stanley’s Cup tonight at 7:30 PM as they take on the Pittsburgh Penguins at the Consol Energy Center. It’s been long-awaited, but the Islanders are finally back in the postseason for the first time since 2007. The Islanders enter the playoffs as the eighth-seed for the first time in their last four appearances.

New York (24-17-7) finished the season on a 0-2-1 skid, but the bigger picture paints the Islanders as a formidable foe for the first-place Penguins. In their last eighteen games, the Islanders went 11-2-5. Four of those losses overtime losses came in a shootout, which will not make any appearances in the playoffs.

For the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Islanders are not expected to get in the way of their Stanley Cup dream. The Penguins won the season series against their Atlantic Division rival 4-1, which would be right in line with many predictions for the upcoming seven-game-series. On paper, the match-up sits in favor of the Pens. But there is a reason they do not play the game on paper and the playoffs seem to favor strange occurrences more often than sticking to the script.

Not only did the Penguins finish 1^st in the Eastern Conference, but they finished 1^st in the NHL in goals scored (165). A line-up of Sidney Crosby (out tonight), Evgeni Malkin, Chris Kunitz, and Jarome Iginla will not be easy for the Islanders (139 goals against for 20^th in the NHL) to contain. Travis Hamonic, Andrew MacDonald, and the rest of the Islanders’ defensive unit are going to have to do the best they can to make it easier on goaltender Evgeni Nabokov. Even then, Nabokov is going to have to stand on his head and steal at least a game or two for New York to have a chance.

Nabokov started all five games against the Penguins this season and his numbers weren’t impressive.  Nabby posted a .893 save percentage and a 3.04 goals-against-average in those five games, one of them in which he was pulled after two periods.  There is hope, though. In seventeen career games against the Penguins, Nabby has a .925 save percentage and a 2.13 goals-against-average. In the Islanders’ only win against the Penguins this season, Nabby made 37 saves on 38 shots (.978 save percentage). The Islanders will need Nabokov on his game for the entire series, and especially Game 1 for the perfect start to the battle that awaits.

For the Isles, Game 1 means everything. A win would give the Islanders their first lead in a series since the 1992-93 season.  With 13 players making their playoff debuts, the Islanders will look to shock the world as early as possible, gain confidence and head back to Long Island with the series, at a minimum  deadlocked at one.

Projected lineup:

26 Moulson – 91 Tavares – 24 Boyes


12 Bailey – 51 Nielsen – 21 Okposo


40 Grabner – 10 Aucoin – 13 McDonald


53 Cizikas– 16 Reasoner – 17 Martin

47 MacDonald – 3 Hamonic


14 Hickey – 11 Visnovsky


2 Streit – 37 Strait

20 Evgeni Nabokov


60 Kevin Poulin

-CT

March 10, 2013; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; New York Islanders defenseman Radek Martinek (4) chases the puck in the corner as Pittsburgh Penguins center Dustin Jeffrey (15) applies pressure during the second period at the CONSOL Energy Center. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

We are on the eve of the Islanders’ first playoff appearance since Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference Quarter Finals. It’s been six years, which really translates to “it’s been too long”. It may feel even longer if you consider the 2001-02 season to be the last real playoff appearance worth getting excited about. Pittsburgh’s looming, but there’s not a single doubt in my mind that this Islanders’ team will make some noise in this postseason. They have worked for this opportunity, they have earned this opportunity, and they will do whatever they can to prove they’re here to stay.

With that being said, there are some nerves in Islanders’ Country. Not only are the Isles matched up against the top-seeded Penguins, but they finished the season on a 0-1-2 skid. OK, so two of those losses came in a glorified skills’ competition that would never take place in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but the Islanders would have liked to earn the ‘W’ against one of those three non-playoff teams.

Don’t worry too much about that, though, Isles’ fans. In the big picture, the Islanders ended the season at the tune of 11-2-5. If the Islanders didn’t close the last third of the season in stride, chances are we would have all been tuning into the draft lottery very closely last night; so, that begs the following question: Why are the Islanders messing with the team’s chemistry?

At first, it may sound harmless. Brian Strait returns from injury and he’s slotted as the Islanders’ sixth-defenseman, a spot in the line-up that was filled by Matt Carkner or Radek Martinek, depending on the match-up. It made sense, in theory. Strait was arguably the Islanders’ best defenseman during his first thirteen games with the Islanders. He was playing with top-pair-minutes, registered a +3, and earned a three-year extension (at the minimum pay) for his play. Then he was injured.  I said we didn’t know what we were losing, and the team struggled. During their first seventeen games without him, the Islanders went 7-8-2. Then things started to change.

The Islanders completed their sweep of Florida. Next, they defeated Washington.  Then the Isles defeated Philadelphia. They followed that up with a 2-0 loss to Pittsburgh, but the Isles’ defense played great. From there, the Isles kept winning, but not just winning: they weren’t allowing many goals. The Islanders went nine straight games without allowing two or more goals, the first time they did anything like that since the 2003-2004 season, and all while rotating Carkner and Martinek in and out of the line-up. Before you knew it, the Islanders surged from the bottom of the standings to the middle of an Eastern Conference Playoff hunt behind a record of 10-1-2 over a fourteen game stretch.

Oh, yeah. Things were great for our Islanders, and you would think they would have gotten even better with Strait’s return to the line-up. He was back from injury just in time for the playoffs, and during the most crucial game of the season for both the Islanders and the Winnipeg Jets. Fortunately, the Islanders pulled away with the 5-4 win in a shootout, but that would be it for the remainder of 2013.

Over the final three games, the Islanders never did look quite in sync, dropping all three of them to non-playoff teams. Strait was in all of those games, as the Islanders messed around with other parts of the line-up. They played Eric Boulton in place of Jesse Joensuu. They dressed Carkner in place of Thomas Hickey. These were little changes, but they may have made all the difference, especially while the Isles were still battling for a spot that was higher than the 8^th-seed.

Well, it turns out the Islanders have taken a gamble. Despite Strait’s excellent play at the beginning of the season, it should be noted that the Islanders were 6-7-1 with him in the line-up before his injury, and are now 7-8-3 with him in the line-up. As it turns out, the Islanders 18-10-7 without Strait in the line-up, which includes that 10-1-2 stretch as the Islanders surged up the standings during the end of March and through April. To myself, it’s not like it’s Brian Strait’s fault. The Islanders are just playing better hockey without him, as they have without Boulton (6-7-2), and as they have without Marty Reasoner.

With Strait already penciled in for the playoffs after missing the core stretch that put the Isles there, it appears the Islanders will also be turning to Marty Reasoner for the Islanders’ first game against the Penguins. As we know, Reasoner hasn’t played since the Islanders met with the Washington Capitals on April 4^th, a 2-1 shootout loss.  The Islanders watched Anders Lee score a goal on his first shot in place of Marty Reasoner. The Isles also watched Joensuu take his place, registering 8 shots on goal when he took over for Reasoner. The Islanders, who went 6-1-3 after sitting Marty Reasoner, will be sending the wrong message by allowing Reasoner back into the line-up.

And then there are the recent call-ups the Islanders made after the regular season came to an end. Obviously, the Islanders aren’t looking to dress Ryan Strome, Brock Nelson, and Matt Donovan (among others) for the playoffs. They’re here in case of an emergency. I just don’t understand how some of us can justify plugging in one of these unproven commodities for the Islanders biggest set of games in six years. Let the young guys get the experience of the playoffs from inside the locker room. It’s just not time to give one of these guys his moment. It’s not the time for experimenting. Not now.

For those familiar with my Twitter, writing, etc, you know the Islanders rarely do wrong in my eyes, but it doesn’t make sense to break up the team after the Islanders made it this far. The New York Islanders made the playoffs as a team. This team saw Radek Martinek and Matt Carkner step up when the Islanders needed them. This team saw the likes of Jesse Joensuu, Colin McDonald, and even Keith Aucoin fill Marty Reasoner’s lifeless skates. To mess with a chemistry that got the team to this point in the first place is unjust. I think the Islanders can win this series, but it’s not the time to tinker with the line-up at the cost of what made this “far-fetched dream” a reality.

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