On a night of one huge surprise, a big surprise gets lost in the glare of the former.
On Tuesday night, the New York Islanders swept aside the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 4, 3-1.
The series win was not that surprising but the sweep certainly was.
The Pens never had an answer for the Isles’ defensive scheme and were bottled up for the entire four games.
“We wanted to play a certain way,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. “We talked about culture and identity. We tried to create that with what we felt we had. We didn’t know a lot about our goaltending. We didn’t know a lot about our defense. … Getting everybody to play for each other is a hard thing. Understanding that you just do your job, do it well, do it for the guy next to you.”
For Trotz, it was am opportunity to finally exorcise the demon of the Pittsburgh history in the playoffs.
Robin Lehner made 32 saves in the win.
The Pens broke through first on a goal from Jake Guentzel.
“We knew the type of game [the Islanders] were going to play and what we were up against,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “You can use any vocabulary you want to describe it. We talked about having patience with our game and taking what the game gives us and making better decisions with the puck so we don’t put ourselves in some difficult circumstances. Unfortunately, we put ourselves in some difficult circumstances.”
ordan Eberle and Brock Nelson responded with goals to give New York the lead for good.
“It’s obviously frustrating,” Sidney Crosby said. “I haven’t had a lot of time to digest it. Just disappointing. I think we felt good about our game coming into the playoffs and were playing some good hockey. And then got off to a rough start, but still felt like we had a chance here coming home.”
Josh Bailey scored an empty-netter late to seal it.
“[The series] was definitely closer than it looked,” Eberle said. “We had to really work to try to get above them, try to frustrate them and try to limit their chances. Obviously, [Lehner] was huge back there. … Anytime they had a chance, he was there to stop them.”
The Islanders will face the winner of the Boston-Toronto series.
[WATCH: Islanders vs. Penguins Game 4 highlights | Complete series coverage]
Matt Murray made 23 saves in the loss.
“They played well and they played hard. They defend hard. So maybe sometimes, with the puck, we were careless. But I thought we played well the last couple games. It just didn’t go our way,”Guentzel said.
You must be logged in to post a comment.