After the New York Islanders fell 3-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 1 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the room wasn't hanging their head at all.
After the New York Islanders fell 3-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 1 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the room wasn't hanging their head at all.
RALEIGH, NC -- In the Stanley Cup Playoffs, moral victories don't do much, but it's important to take the positives and build on them, especially early in the series.
After the New York Islanders fell 3-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 1, the room wasn't hanging their head at all.
And, they didn't really have a reason to, as they hung with arguably the most talented team in the East, dominating them in the second period, but just didn't get the bounce they needed while Carolina got theirs.
"We'll build off this. That's all you can do. It's a series," Islanders captain Anders Lee said. "It's tough to drop the first one, but it's how we respond, it's how we take this, how we feel about ourselves. I thought we played a solid hockey game."
Lee's thoughts were shared.
"It was pretty solid. It could have went either way," Kyle Palmieri told The Hockey News. "We did a lot of good things. It was a pretty tight, tight defensive game."
Outside of Palmieri's chance to tuck one around the left pad of Hurricanes netminder Frederik Andersen in the third to the game at 2-2, Noah Dobson had a glorious chance to score and do the same.
"We definitely had a couple of good looks, especially in the third," Dobson said. "It's going to be tight out there all series. We just have to find a way to bear down on those good looks."
Besides those two chances, Palmieri was stoned in the second period by Andersen on a 2-on-1 chance after a strong Brock Nelson feed.
Mathew Barzal had a chance off a Sebastian Aho turnover, but Andersen squared up to the slot shot.
Bo Horvat almost snuck one past Andersen on a one-timer, but the puck squeaked just wide.
This is what the playoffs are about: Getting chances and burying.
Kyle MacLean did just that to tie the game in the first period after jumping on a rebound following an Anders Lee deflection off an Alexander Romanov point shot.
"It's the playoffs. There's a lot of adrenaline and a lot of excitement, so it was cool to help the team out there early," MacLean told THN. "It was a cool experience getting my first one in there."
Lee was proud of the hard work on that shift from everyone.
"We had a great little shift there," Lee told THN. "We were really solid down low, and Romanov did a good job holding that blue line. It's huge when our defensemen can hold the line like that. It's not easy with them flying. But he got it in. I was able to get a piece, and then MacLean was just so strong on a stick right there to put it in.'
That was the lone goal the Islanders were able to score despite the many chances.
Unfortunately for the Islanders, the Hurricanes got their chance at 3:44 of the third after surging the Islanders' zone, an in-tight chance that Stefan Noesen snuck under Semyon Varlamov's pad for the game-winner.
"I'm encouraged because I thought we played a really solid game. We did a lot of good things out there. It was a hard-fought game, but we had our chances, and I'm frustrated because we had our chances," Roy said. "There's key moments in the game that moment where the goalie tripped on their defenseman's skate, and we have two good shots on that, could have been goals right there to take a 2-1 lead, but we came up short.
"All year, we've been resilient and that's the moment to continue to do that."
The Islanders will have a chance to even up the series at 1-1 when the puck drops for Game 2 on Monday at 7:30 PM.