The Islanders aren't boring

[carparkno1]

Goals, hits, fights, big saves. Scoring chances and emotion.

Matt Martin was scuffing with everyone in game 4, Varly dived the length of the ice last night for a celebration and made a tonne of saves. Isles scored in 2OT.

What more do you savages want lol

 

[Cotton]

Allowing one goal against playing the highest scoring team in the league for almost 100 minutes, pretty good representation of how defense is played. Trying to win by scoring video game numbers may be exciting to you, but it does not seem to work in the playoffs. I do not watch basketball, because only the last two minutes matter.
It came down to someone on one team making a mistake. If it bores you, watch basketball.

The game is a goal scoring derby and has been for most of the past 200 years, if you want a defensive bore fest, watch soccer.

 

[Sky04]

And Tampa had 37 and scored once. On paper, that's not very exciting.

Tampa was putting on a better show and were sitting 2 90 point centers out.

The Islanders style is very boring, as an Islanders fan you probably wouldn't care how they win but from an outsiders perspective it's not a very fun brand of hockey to watch.

 

[carparkno1]

Tampa was putting on a better show and were sitting 2 90 point centers out.

The Islanders style is very boring, as an Islanders fan you probably wouldn't care how they win but from an outsiders perspective it's not a very fun brand of hockey to watch.

The Isles were missing Cizikas who had a 20 goal season not long ago. Every team gets injuries.

 

[Sky04]

The Isles were missing Cizikas who had a 20 goal season not long ago. Every team gets injuries.

Cizakas would make hockey more fun to watch compared to Point and Stamkos..........?

 

[GrandmaSlices51631]

Cizakas would make hockey more fun to watch compared to Point and Stamkos..........?

You've missed the point entirely, well done.

 

[Sky04]

You've missed the point entirely, well done.

No, you've clearly missed the point. Maybe a little drowsy from watching your team?

 

[carparkno1]

Second point. Who gives two cents about basketball? I don't. Irrelevant until the last couple of minutes most games I've seen.

Flip side, anyone who says soccer is boring needs their heads looked at.

Is this just a young person thing? Everything has to be immediately satisfying action?

Bloody kids

 

[carparkno1]

The Isles were missing Cizikas who had a 20 goal season not long ago. Every team gets injuries.

When you say "better show"... They'd only scored one goal in nearly five periods.

 

[Dr Pepper]

Anyone can wear a cage, if they want to. Nobody does, because it's horrible.

Why would the league not allow it in general if a player wanted to wear it?

Could have sworn there was an NHL rule on this very thing......only goalies and players with medical conditions (i.e. Komarov) could wear the full cage.

All others must wear a visor - unless they were playing pre-2013/14.

https://cms.nhl.bamgrid.com/images/assets/binary/308893668/binary-file/file.pdf

9.8 Dangerous Equipment - The use of pads or protectors made of metal, or of any other material likely to cause injury to an opposing player is prohibited. Referees have the authority to prohibit any equipment they feel may cause injury to any participants in the game. Failure to comply with the Referees’ instructions shall result in the assessment of a minor penalty for delay of game. A mask or protector of a design approved by the League may be worn by a player who has sustained a facial injury. In the first instance, the injured player shall be entitled to wear any protective device prescribed by the Club doctor. If any opposing Club objects to the device, it may record its objection with the Commissioner

Think that's it there.

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

WRONG.

 

[notDatsyuk]

You mean two of the Lightning's best players are hurt and the GWG in the Islanders two wins were the equivalent of a Lightning defenseman picking the puck up and just tossing it behind Vasilevskiy into the net.

Did they do that deliberately to lose, or were they being pressed into mistakes?

 

[Riseonfire]

Tampa was putting on a better show and were sitting 2 90 point centers out.

The Islanders style is very boring, as an Islanders fan you probably wouldn't care how they win but from an outsiders perspective it's not a very fun brand of hockey to watch.

This is rich, cause Tampa has been blowing it Playoff after Playoff because they've been playing 'exciting' hockey. Now they retooled and play a more structured 'boring' game and they're having success.

Hilarious to hear this from a Tampa fan.

 

[GrandmaSlices51631]

No, you've clearly missed the point. Maybe a little drowsy from watching your team?

Wide awake here, The point was that every team loses players to injury as someone was making excuses for your hockey club. You then made it all about entertainment. Here's a news flash for you, Barry Trotz cares about winning, not entertaining you.

 

[HugginThePost]

Turning it off in OT because one team is too boring? That seems a little extreme.

Is it? I'll admit, I made it to the end of the first OT period, then I couldn't force myself to watch anymore.

It was a horrible game from beginning to end. Horrible. Like watching two middling teams out of the playoffs in the dregs of February.

 

[abo9]

I'm not one for breaking down stats and numbers to the thousandth to prove a point that was lost sixteen pages ago, but I wanted to point out my experience of watching the Isles of late vs the run and gun comedy of the recent Capuano / Weight era.

The islanders are in the ECF by right. They beat Florida comfortably, they beat Washington comfortably, and whilst there was a stumble, they closed out Philly with one of the most dominant game 7 displays I've seen in a long time.

They are ONE game behind Tampa, and those are the facts.

Across the four remaining teams, including the play in / seed round robin games, the Isles have the HIGHEST goals scored @3.09 per game and note they have had three shutout, and 13/21 games have seen the opposition score two goals or less.

Now, on these boards, I have seen a tremendous amount of pushback that they are boring to watch. Some of it I take as just bitter tears from a few fanbases and one or two fans in particular who have an unhealthy obsession with trying to undermine the franchise as a whole, and a few fans from teams who went out to the Isles complaining about the style they play. I've also seen some more balanced posters state that it's interesting to watch teams fail to work out how to beat them. I love this tactical side of hockey.

There's a few things here.

1) Find a way to beat them. It's on you to unlock the door, not for the Isles to open it.

2) Stop them scoring. Considering the Isles PP is a godawful thing, it's interesting they have the highest goals count overall which means from open play they excel.

3) Maybe it's a young person thing, but hockey, like soccer, doesn't have to be a twelve goal epic every game. There's a fine art to having a controlled game plan that is executed relentlessly.

4) The Isles had a 15 game win streak (17 game point streak including OTL) earlier this season which was tremendous to watch. That's not boring.

Simply put, it isn't dull watching the Isles. The numbers don't support it, the wins don't support it either. They don't have elite goalscorer talent and yet they do score goals, right up and down the lines.

The "eye test" is always important here and I'd put my savings on half the posters here just thinking it's Trotz hockey so it must be dull. Try watching it, try watching a team forecheck another team into oblivion, because it's a key part of hockey. Not everything is NHL 20 dekes and showboating, and those aren't the things that win a Stanley Cup.

A "dull" team that wins a cup is a cup winning team all the same, and that could be Dallas or the Isles this year or maybe next. 5on5 hockey is the bread and butter of the game, and the islanders are extremely good at it over the least two seasons. That isn't boring in any comparative measure, it's exciting, tough matchups where teams have to outwork and outthink a group of guys who play as one unit.

And no, it isn't dead puck hockey, or trap hockey. Anyone who says that just looked it up on Wikipedia.

I really think they deserve more credit for their style, it's nowhere near as dull as people say it is.

Well people complain about the boring style of Dallas too lol. The only surprise is how they beat Tampa in GPG even after that 8-2 fiasco? I know Tampa had a hard time scoring against Columbus, don't recall Boston so that might be it. Though those Columbus games were EXCITING, Tampa was not scoring because Korpisalo was all over the net making absolute steal saves.

I'll have to watch the remaining games because I've honestly not been interested in the Islanders at the start with how many teams were alive, and I just lost the momentum to watch after a while.

 

[Sky04]

This is rich, cause Tampa has been blowing it Playoff after Playoff because they've been playing 'exciting' hockey. Now they retooled and play a more structured 'boring' game and they're having success.

Hilarious to hear this from a Tampa fan.

They haven't been playing exciting hockey these playoffs? News to me, saw lots of nice plays when they trashed the Islanders with 8 goals. Like I said they put on a better show than the Islanders without 2 star forwards. That actually says more about the Islanders than it does Tampa. Varlamov is probably the most exciting Islander because he's the only one consistently doing anything, the rest of the team likes to turtle and over-pass without getting a shot off.

 

[JT Kreider]

The point was that every team loses players to injury as someone was making excuses for your hockey club.

Honest question, when was the last time a team was without two of their best players like Point and Stamkos in the conference finals?

 

[Riseonfire]

They haven't been playing exciting hockey these playoffs? News to me, saw lots of nice plays when they trashed the Islanders with 8 goals. Like I said they put on a better show than the Islanders without 2 star forwards. That actually says more about the Islanders than it does Tampa. Varlamov is probably the most exciting Islander because he's the only one consistently doing anything, the rest of the team likes to turtle and over-pass without getting a shot off.

'Put on a better show' is the most useless statistic in hockey. No wonder Tampa has struggled to get it done.

 

[notDatsyuk]

Goals, hits, fights, big saves. Scoring chances and emotion.

Well, there have been lots of hits by both teams, a few fights (always fewer in playoffs), some excellent scoring chances and several huge saves, and lots of emotion.

I think your idea of exciting is just sloppy, careless mistakes leading to lots of bad goals.

 

[tsujimoto74]

Your argument doesn't do anything ton shake the boring tag. We all know the Islanders' style is effective and wins them hockey games. That doesn't make them exciting to anyone but their fans (I'm sure 1-0 win with 20 SOG between both teams is fine by almost any fan if their team is getting the W). The fact is they play very defensive hockey and don't have a lot of high-skill players, and that's just not exciting to a lot of people.

 

[notDatsyuk]

The Isles are playing Tampa very differently from the first 3 series. Against the Panthers, Caps and Flyers they played great defense but were also generating a ton of offensive opportunities (by xGF and HDCF) they also scored the most goals per game. They just flat out dominated with exciting hockey.

They are not doing that against the lightning and I think thats mostly by design. Tampa has just too much talent and unfortunately Vasilevsky's ability to play the puck neutralizes a lot of their fore-checking. Right now the team is essentially preventing anything from coming into the middle of the ice and the counter-attacking when they have an opportunity. That is boring but I'm ok with that cause i think that's the only way they can potentially beat a team like the lightning.

I tend to look at it the other way. Isles are still trying, but Tampa is better at stopping it.

I prefer to see it as "team A is doing better", rather than "team B has stopped trying".

 

[SotasicA]

Well, there have been lots of hits by both teams, a few fights (always fewer in playoffs), some excellent scoring chances and several huge saves, and lots of emotion.

And that's why I think it's been a great, exciting series.

I think your idea of exciting is just sloppy, careless mistakes leading to lots of bad goals.

Huh? For a moment I thought we were in agreement. I like the hits and the fights and the drama, thus I like sloppy play and bad goals?

Or maybe it's your split personality talking.

 

[Sky04]

Keep moving the goalposts, you mentioned the injuries. Again, if you haven't gotten the memo, the Isles lack superstar talent so they play a system to their strengths which gives them the best chance to win. Boring gives the Isles a fighters chance vs most teams, which is why people don't like it.

The GWG was more entertaining to me and my neutral friends than anything Tampa did offensively last night, but again, it is subjective.

"Moving the goalpost" when it takes this guy 3 posts to find out what the thread is about

At least you're awake now, not missing much though, boring topic just like the Islanders.

 

[FourRings]

They haven't been playing exciting hockey these playoffs? News to me, saw lots of nice plays when they trashed the Islanders with 8 goals.

Well, yeah, I'd expect the Lightning to make nice plays when the Islanders just wrapped up a 7 game series, flew across two time zones and played Game 1 with like, zero rest. They got f***ed by the schedule but so be it; they did it to themselves by not finishing Philly off quicker. Game 1 is in no way an accurate representation of the difference between these teams. It's not like Tampa is taking any crazy risks and exposing themselves defensively either. The two teams are doing the same thing to each other. The difference is that TB defensemen can actually get their shots through.

Like I said they put on a better show than the Islanders without 2 star forwards. That actually says more about the Islanders than it does Tampa.

Well, maybe the Lightning should be nominated for a Tony award because the Stanley Cup isn't about who puts on the best show. TB is clearly the more talented team though, that's without question. Time will tell if they can convert their embarrassment of riches into a Cup before the Cap monster gets them.

Varlamov is probably the most exciting Islander because he's the only one consistently doing anything, the rest of the team likes to turtle and over-pass without getting a shot off.

Cool. He's part of the team. His successes are the Islanders successes. The team doesn't turtle but they do over-pass a ton and it's maddening. Maybe the "show" would be better if they ripped more shots.