A Candid X-Ray Of What Went Right & Wrong For Islanders

Game Six of the Islanders-Hurricanes series was there for the Nassaumen to win -- provided they did things right.

And they did, for two full periods.

They came out hard, fiercely forechecked, bodied the foe at every opportunity, and finally scored the first goal; a rarity for the Elmonters.

Cal Clutterbuck's first-period red light merely inspired the home club to up the ante even more.

They followed the opening period blitz with even more intensity in the middle frame.. They even seemed to have an added advantage when Canes coach

Rod Brind 'Amour started rusty Fred Andersen in goal

Andy was peppered throughout the second period as the capacity crowd roared its approval. Meanwhile, Brock Nelson was dominating face-offs -- 62 percent overall -- and Ilya Sorokin looked solid in goal.

The score -- 1-0, Isles after two -- indicated typical playoff hockey which was right up the Islanders' alley. Plus, the hometown crowd was with them all the way, and then some.

One newsman who covered the team all season unabashedly said, "That second period might have been their best all series long."

But there was an uneasiness among the crowd and among some of the players such as Bo Horvat who figured his club deserved one or two more red lights simply based on how New York carried the play.

All they had to show after all the sound and fury was still that one goal by a fourth-liner. Then again, nobody could have forecast the momentum change that followed the first drop of the third-period puck.

"We failed to execute," said Lane Lambert.

Nobody could argue with the Isles skipper, except that he was guilty of gross understatement.

When the third period began, the home team reacted as if a thick fog had enveloped the ice and the home stick handlers.

To put it simply the entire team seemed to be lost, performing as badly as in any of the bad games during the regular season.

Put it any way you wish: the Islanders ran out of gas; they were confused by not having anything but a goal for their two-period efforts.

The skating hustle was gone along with the intense forechecking while turnovers followed turnovers.

For almost half a period, Sorokin kept the enemy at bay until the inevitable happened. Sebastian Aho scored out of a goalmouth scramble, and the big goal Clutterbuck had scored suddenly looked small.

"We could have been more on our toes," added Lambert.

Carolina continued to dominate zone time and might well have won the game in regulation were it not for Sorokin.

Granted, the game still was up for grabs, but none of the "name" scorers posed a threat. Bo Horvat, Anders Lee, Kyle Palmieri, and Brock Nelson carried popguns.

By all rights, the overtime period should have gone on longer. But Adam Pelech's decision to pitchfork the puck out of danger -- he should have skated it out -- failed and that led to Stastny's gamble shot that fooled Sorokin.

Carolina won without aces Andrei Svechnikov, Max Pacioretty, and Teuvo Teravainen. That leveled the playing field, but the Isles failed to exploit the advantage.

But when a team runs out of gas -- as the Islanders did after the second period -- their game becomes kaput, leaving them no alternative but to hang on for dear life or -- in this case -- overtime death.

"Sometimes when you just try to hold on, it doesn't work," concluded Mathew Barzal. "We sat back to make it hard on them, but the game went the other way."

Not to mention the Islanders' playoff bid.