Islanders: 3 Takeaways from Season-Ending 1-0 Loss in Game 7

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Head coach Barry Trotz of the New York Islanders. (Photo by Rich Graessle/Getty Images) /

The New York Islanders pushed the defending champion Lightning as far as they could, but fell short on Friday night in Tampa. Losing 1-0 to end their season.

Just five wins short of Stanley Cup glory for the first time since 1984, the 2020-21 New York Islanders rocket ship to immortality ran out of fuel on Friday night in Tampa, as they lost 1-0 to the defending champion Lightning.

Here are three takeaways from the bitter defeat.

1. Islanders Line Changes came too Late

To say the New York Islanders struggled to find any gaps in the Tampa Bay defense to exploit in Game Seven would be an understatement. The Isles, who stayed patient and committed to their system’s tenets to the very end, simply were never able to mount those big pushes we’re so accustomed to seeing from them.

The Islanders struggled to break out of their own defensive zone, they struggled to maintain control through the neutral zone, and finally, in the offensive third of the ice their forecheck was diced to bits by Tampa’s disciplined breakouts all night. It was hard to watch at times.

Obviously, there’s a lot of credit due to the Tampa Bay Lightning for this. They watched their tape, obviously, and studied the parts of previous games that had gone wrong for them, and they executed like champions on Friday, taking away all parts of the Islander gameplan that had found success.

What was shocking really was how long Islanders coach Barry Trotz waited to make some shuffles in his forward lines. Kyle Palmieri spent the majority of his night on the wing with J-G Pageau and Travis Zajac.

That third line combo was absolutely dreadful in Game Seven. They were out-shot 9-0 at 5v5, out-attempted 13-3 (total shot attempts) and 10-2 (unblocked shot attempts), and lost the expected goal (xG) battle handily, ceding more xGA than any other 5v5 Islander forward line while also accumulating the least of any, according to Natural Stat Trick.

Palmieri spent about a minute and a half of the third period lined up alongside both Mat Barzal and Jordan Eberle, and that was only after Leo Komarov had gone to the Islander locker room.

In the 1:15 those three spent together though their results were better than they were separated. 2 Corsi and Fenwick For (total and unblocked shot attempts), none Against, and .1 accumulated xGF, which was better than both the regular Barzal line featuring Leo, and Palmieri-Pageau-Zajac accrued, each of which played over ten minutes 5v5 ice time on Friday night.

Now, game state is certainly a factor when looking at the better underlyings posted by the Palmieri-Baral-Eberle line. By the time that trio had hit the ice together at 5v5, the third period was into its twilight and the Lightning had been fully shelled up in their own end staving off Islander attacks for the majority of the frame.

You could make the argument that the limited numbers we saw from them in this game are the result of a Tampa team who simply wasn’t interested in accruing offensive zone possession or taking risks to extend their lead. They were content to defend their own zone and leave the Islanders with nothing to claw their way back into the game.

That’s a fair assessment, in my book. But it’s still isn’t meant as an excuse to cover for why Trotz didn’t do something to shake up his offensive units earlier in the game.

At the end of the day, the Islanders relied on their system, which has brought them so far. One of the key doctrines of that system being not to take unnecessary risks, to let the game come to you, to keep your opponents in front of you, and the offense will eventually figure itself out.

On Friday it didn’t work that way, and the Islanders were sent packing from the NHL playoffs as a result.

Oliver Wahlstrom #26 of the New York Islanders. (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images) /

2. Why Was Oliver Wahlstrom Scratched So Long?

Oliver Wahlstrom only played 63:13 of 5v5 ice time in these 2020-21 playoffs. The exciting young winger who Islanders fans have grown so fond of was injured in the opening round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and never returned to the lineup. Sitting in the press box for the final 14 games of the team’s run to the conference finals.

Why? The team’s underlying results with Wahlstrom on the ice at 5v5 through the first five games of the playoffs were quite measurably positive.

Yet, that didn’t make a difference when it came to getting the 21-year-old Wahlstrom back into the lineup, it would appear. It’s possible that Wahlstrom was still injured all the way up to Friday night’s Game Seven defeat, and that even if he wanted to Barry Trotz could not have played him.

That said, Trotz’s reputation for being a veteran’s coach who prefers tenured players to those with less experience is not an unwarranted label. We’ve talked about it all season as a fanbase. Barry likes his vets.

He’d prefer Leo Komarov to bring a steady nothingness to the Islanders top line over the potential upside of a Kieffer Bellows, who was at times mistake-prone in his appearances in 2020-21. In that same vein, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest he preferred Travis Zajac’s presence over Wahlstrom’s in the most crucial games played all year.

The one hole I always seem to go back to in that theory is that Noah Dobson, a young player prone to some mistakes in his first full-time season as an NHL’er, played a full schedule with the exception of his missed time due to COVID earlier this season.

But whatever the reason for Wahlstrom’s absence, one thing is certain, the Islanders could’ve probably used a player with Ollie’s upside in games during this Tampa series. A player who possessed a shot capable of beating the odds and finding the net.

They missed that in this run, and it hurts doubly so after seeing the Montreal Canadiens reach the finals with young players like Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki as key contributors in their lineup.

Brock Nelson #29 of the New York Islanders. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

3. 2021-22 Could be a Season of Change for Islanders

With their playoffs only just having ended on Friday night, it might feel a little bit premature to already be talking about the Islanders 2021-22 season. But the reality is that the team and its management will have a lot of work to do to in order to reach the lofty heights they’ve hit in these last two seasons.

The bubble playoffs and this most-recent failure to capture a championship may feel like failures to the fanbase right now, but the reality is it is supremely difficult just to reach this point of the playoffs in the modern NHL.

The Lightning, Islanders, and Vegas Golden Knights all reached the final four both this season and in the 2020 summer playoff bubbles. But Vegas and Tampa boast two of the best rosters in the league, and the Islanders, while deep and disciplined and full of fight, just aren’t in the same category when you measure the top-ends of all three rosters against one another.

With this summer’s expansion draft looming large, the Islanders will have a fair bit of work to do in order to maintain their core and supply the lineup with the proper compliment of depth and role players.

There’s also the free agency of several key Islanders approaching on the horizon, and that will mean some tough choices could be coming as far as who returns to the team and who doesn’t.

Anthony Beauvillier, Adam Pelech, and Ilya Sorokin are all restricted free agents this year. Casey Cizikas is an unrestricted free agent, and a member of a fourth line that Lou Lamoriello seems intent on keeping together for the foreseeable future.

But with only about $5.800 million in cap space at the present moment, how the team manages to bring back all these returning members remains an interesting quandary.

Andrew Ladd, who played just one pro game all season with AHL Bridgeport, could provide $4.375 million worth of salary cap relief if the team is able to place him on long term injured reserve.

That would bring the Isles to about $10.175 million in cap space, leaving them with somewhere between $11.600 million and $15.675 million after the expansion draft, assuming Seattle opts to take a rostered Islander with term remaining and not just a 2021 free agent to satisfy the expansion draft demands of picking a player from every single NHL team.

Whatever happens this summer, there’s sure to be a lot involved in assembling a championship-caliber roster for the Islanders in 2021-22. With the obvious stated, we’ll just have to wait and see how things unfold.

Finally, I do want to say thank you to everyone who followed along with the three takeaways this season. I know I didn’t get one done after every game, like I would’ve liked to, but for those of you who kept coming back and adding to the conversation in the comments section and elsewhere. Just know you’re appreciated.

Thanks for following along this season, and let’s go Islanders in 2021-22.

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The New York Islanders pushed the defending champion Lightning as far as they could, but fell short on Friday night in Tampa. Losing 1-0 to end their season.

1. Islanders Line Changes came too Late

2. Why Was Oliver Wahlstrom Scratched So Long?

3. 2021-22 Could be a Season of Change for Islanders

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