Islanders Lack of Discipline Reverses Momentum in Game 4 Defeat

The New York Islanders got the short end of the stick early in Game 4. A questionable goaltender interference call against Zach Parise and a Ryan Pulock boarding call allowed the Carolina Hurricanes to get on the board first.

And away the Hurricanes went while the Islanders played a losing game of momentum tag en route to a 5-2 loss. 

READ MORE: Hurricanes Win Game Three 5-2; Islanders Season on the Brink

"My opinion doesn't matter on it. You guys saw it," a frustrated Parise said postgame. "You guys can make your own decisions, but I felt like I got pushed onto him."

But then Parise, who always keeps it real, did so again.

"You can't get fixated on the officiating. You got to beat them too, sometimes." Parise said. "You got to overcome that."

Parise continued: "You gotta keep playing. But of course, it's deflating when you've got the energy and coming out (to an) excited building, and all of a sudden you're down five-on-three, and one goes in, it's deflating. But there's a lot of hockey left after that."

There was 55:55 left in the game.

"We had some looks to get back in it early," Noah Dobson said. 

But undisciplined penalties disallowed them from playing five-on-five, where they had dominated so far this series. 

The officials had their whistles in their mouths the entire first period, with 12 minutes of penalties to go around before the first came to a close. 

Then when the horn sounded, veteran Matt Martin launched fill-in Mackenzie MacEachern after he was going at it with Casey Cizikas.

The Hurricanes needed 1:15 on the man advantage to stick it to Martin and the Islanders early in the second, scoring on the power play for the second time, putting New York in a 2-0 hole.

Then a tad over five minutes later, Brock Nelson decided to throw a hit on Martin Necas, not the puck carrier -- nor ever the puck carrier -- earning him a two-minute penalty.

The Hurricanes didn't score, but that was another two minutes where the Hurricanes could build momentum and keep the likes of Mathew Barzal off the ice.

The Islanders used their physicality in the first period, with 16 hits, but couldn't keep that going with just eight in the second as they chased the puck. 

By the time the scoreboard read 18:00 to play in the third, the Hurricanes had added another, and the arena was lifeless. The Islanders could not break through the neutral zone and establish any kind of forecheck.

Once the Islanders did find their game in the third, as the Hurricanes gave them more space up 4-0, they got a goal and garnered momentum from that. 

However, it was just too late.

The Islanders were shorthanded five times in the game, and a few were avoidable.

There's a fine line between the Islanders playing their physical brand -- which they have to play -- and undisciplined hockey.

On Sunday afternoon, they crossed that line and paid the price.  

"I thought we took a couple of undisciplined penalties, no question," Islanders head coach Lane Lambert said. "It totally slowed our momentum, changed momentum a little bit, the power-play goal they scored (in the first).

"The second one (Martin's) was a real stinger."

The Hurricanes lost Game 3 due to their inability to score on the power play, per head coach Rod Brind'Amour, and they responded in Game 4.

"You got to play hard, but there's a fine line, and you got to stay on that line," Dobson said. "Don't cross it, obviously, and tonight it hurt us a little bit.

"We just got to do a better job managing our emotions. We're playing hard. It's high-intensity out there. It's just unfortunate tonight, the results."

Horvat agreed that they hurt their chances of momentum:

"When we were getting momentum, we took the penalties, and then, we continue to keep taking them at the end of the period, and then obviously all of a sudden, they get one early in the second just again, we got to find ways to play five-on-five and drop penalties instead of taking them right now."

THN followed up by asking Horvat if he and his teammates had to dial their physicality down a bit since that line that Dobson spoke about was crossed.

"I think we still gotta stay aggressive," Horvat said. "I think we still have to play physical and still do what we do and wear them down, but we have to stay disciplined within that."

The Islanders shot themselves in the foot in Game 4 and now have their backs against the wall when the puck drops for Game 5 in Raleigh on Tuesday.