New York Islanders Eliminated In Loss To Panthers (Highlights)

With the New York Islanders loss to the Florida Panthers tonight the Islanders are officially eliminated from playoff contention.

With still six games remaining the New York Islanders season is already over. With yet another loss, their 14th loss in their last 16 games, the Islanders were officially eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention.

The first period was scoreless through the first 11 minutes of play. Keith Yandle got the Panthers on the board beating Chris Gibson with a shot. Gibson was screened on the play and it also dropped Nick Leddy to a -41 for those who seem to care about the useless statistic.

In the second period, Mathew Barzal took a questionable double minor. It looked like Vincent Trocheck’s own stick came up and hit him in the face, but nonetheless, Barzal sat in the box for four minutes. Bjustad netted one early in the power play giving Florida a two-goal lead.

Evgenii Dadonov would add his 24th of the season shortly after giving the Panthers a 3-0 lead after two periods of play.

The Islanders finished with 32 shots on goal, four power-play opportunities, and zero goals, in essentially an elimination game. James Reimer looked good tonight, but still, it’s the same old story with the Islanders letting a backup netminder shut them out.

That’s all I got on the game tonight. It’s not so much about breaking down what actually happened on the ice tonight and more about what the loss actually means.

In November this team had a 99 percent chance of making the playoffs. 99! They followed that up with four months of embarrassingly bad defense and overall incompetence from management and coaches.

If we can take a positive out of this it’s that the Islanders have an opportunity to move up the draft board the next few weeks and we can maybe, keyword maybe, see a change in management. One can only dream.

Next: Islanders Starting Lineup Of Traded Draft Picks

The Draft Lottery is on April 28, that’s the next date of importance. After that, it’ll be two months of agony until we find out John Tavares’ decision. Can’t wait!