In this Stanley Cup season of surprises, Friday’s brilliant goaltending duel won 1-0 by Carolina Hurricanes‘ Petr Mrazek against Robin Lehner of the New York Islanders perfectly represented the unexpected.
The 27-year-olds appeared to be playing themselves towards the National Hockey League exit when they were unimpressive enough last season that their teams cut them adrift as unrestricted free agents rather than extend qualifying offers to retain their rights.
Mrazek bombed with the Philadelphia Flyers after a late-season trade from the Detroit Red Wings in 2017-18 and was sent to the free-agent market with a rather unappealing .891 save percentage.
Lehner was slightly better with the Buffalo Sabres last season, building a .908 save rate but winning only 14 times in 53 appearances before he was jettisoned amid a myriad of personal problems, including mental health and substance-abuse issues.
The contracts these goalies were offered by Carolina and the Islanders, identical one-year $1.5 million deals, were essentially NHL life rafts — a chance for them to save their careers by proving they could still stop pucks at an elite level.
Friday, in the first game of the second-round playoff series between the Islanders and Hurricanes in New York, Lehner and Mrazek were easily the best players on their teams.
Each goalie made 31 saves, but Lehner was the only one who let a puck into his net when Jordan Staal scored from an acute angle at 4:04 of overtime off an end-boards rebound from Nino Niederreiter’s errant shot.
It came after Islanders winger Cal Clutterbuck, with time on the puck in an attacking position, passed it to no one inside the Carolina blue line to launch a two-on-one counterattack by the Hurricanes. New York survived the initial rush, but couldn’t regain the puck before Staal was able to whack it past defenceman Devon Toews’ stick and Lehner’s outstretched left pad.
HOME ADVANTAGE?
The Islanders swept their first-round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins playing home games at, you know, home on Long Island at the Coliseum in Uniondale. But their arena plan was always to return to Barclays Center in Brooklyn for the second round.
At the Coliseum, the frenzied crowd, one of the loudest in the NHL, got the team going. At Barclays, it was the other way around. The arena, which opted out of its lease agreement with the Islanders because it can do better business without the NHL hindering the concert schedule, sounded nothing like the Coliseum.
With more than a few empty seats in prime locations at the start, it looked and sounded on television like a regular-season game until Islanders winger Matt Martin steamrolled Justin Williams about five minutes in. It was soon followed by Valtteri Filppula’s scoring chance for New York and a tripping penalty to Williams. By then, the crowd of 15,795 was into it.
Still, it was no Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Given the emotions of the playoffs, albeit in a Stanley Cup tournament in which “home-ice advantage” often no longer exists, you have to wonder if the Islanders will miss their old barn this series.
RESTED AND RUSTED
It was impressive how the Hurricanes, badly outplayed for the final 15 minutes of the opening period, recovered their equilibrium, caught up to the Islanders in the middle frame and pushed the game at them in the third.
The Hurricanes just finished a seven-game first-round series against the Washington Capitals that required Carolina to play 91 minutes on Wednesday before eliminating the defending Cup champions in double overtime.
Two nights later, the Hurricanes looked like the more energetic team in the game’s second half.
The Islanders, however, were the team that had nine full days to rest and practise after their early opening-round victory against the Penguins.
Vegas Golden Knights general manager George McPhee said after his team lost the final to the Capitals last June that he felt the Knights had had too much time off after winning the Western Conference Final in five games against the Winnipeg Jets. It was eight days later when Vegas opened the championship against Washington.
The Islanders looked at times on Friday like they were more rusty than rested. The lack of timing was especially evident when Brock Nelson, who scored three times in four games against Pittsburgh, twice whiffed on close-range one-timers when a lot of the Carolina net was showing.
THIS IS DANGEROUS
We understand that the NHL is the only league with an entirely different officiating standard for the playoffs than the regular season. And most people like it that way. We get it; let the players decide it.
But do safety guidelines for the league’s concussion spotters also get incinerated?
About seven minutes into the second period, New York defenceman Thomas Hickey was flattened on an open-ice hit by Brock McGinn, whose contact points included Hickey’s face. This is the same Hickey who was out nearly 2½ months this season with a concussion after striking the back of his head against the boards in December during a game against the Colorado Avalanche. The same Hickey who only a couple of minutes earlier was crunched into the wall by Clark Bishop.
Hickey struggled to the bench after McGinn’s hit, removed his helmet as he sat on the bench and answered the same question from teammates and medical staff: “You OK?”
This was Hickey’s first playoff game, a chance to play due to defenceman Johnny Boychuk’s leg injury. Of course he was OK. No one ordered him off the ice to the “quiet room” and a more thorough examination. Everyone just took him at his word.
KEY MATCHUP
Even more than the goalies, the most impressive matchup might be between head coaches Barry Trotz and Rod Brind’Amour. When you see where the Islanders and Hurricanes are and with the lineups they have – and that one team is going to the Eastern Conference Final with a chance to advance to the Stanley Cup Final – the remarkable coaching done by Trotz and Brind’Amour is obvious.
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