Islanders News: Can’t count this team out yet

Folks, there will be a Game 6!

Last night’s Game 5 was an extremely tense affair that lasted nearly four hours. It was over 92 minutes of hockey before Anders Lee poked Kevin Shattenkirk’s whiff off the boards to himself to start a two-on-one that Jordan Eberle finished off.

The Stars will have to wait a little while longer before learning their opponent in the Stanley Cup Final.

Islanders News

Recaps from the double-OT Game 5 win:

• Dom relays us his late-night joy and delirium. [LHH]
• The Isles are stayin’ alive. [Islanders]
• Eberle keeps our hopes afloat. [Newsday]
• Barry Trotz made changes to his lineup last night and he seemed to push the right buttons again. [Newsday]
• Eric Hornick has all the goodies from last night’s game, the fifth-longest in Islanders history. [NYI Skinny]
• A link to a link with some fancier stats from last night’s win. [OTF]
• LOOK: Some photos from last night. [Newsday]

Eberle and Ryan Pulock, the game’s goal-scorers, addressed the media.

And there were some laughs from Johnny Boychuk and Semyon Varlamov—who played splendidly to keep the Isles alive last night—about the goalie’s “Pete Rose slide” into the celebratory bunch.

And, of course, the boss spoke about his team’s performance.

Onto the bits:

• Trotz went with eleven forwards and seven defensemen, inserting “the old warhorse” in Boychuk. It wasn’t a pretty game, but it was a display of the Isles’ adjusted strategy to defeat the Lightning: just get the puck out of your zone. [The Athletic]
• Boychuk, a “father figure” to many of the younger guys, as Trotz described him, surely provided a lift to his team. [NY Post]
• The coach is unconcerned with his team’s inability to practice; most teams haven’t been able to in the bubble. [NY Post]
• Derick Brassard has yet to record a point in this series, but Big Game Brass has a knack for these big moments and it would be a good time for him to step up and make big plays. [Newsday]
• The Islanders have staved off elimination quite a few times in their history. [NYI Skinny]
• And they’re showing Tampa Bay that it won’t be easy to close them out. [NY Post]
• The long playoff run is a big plus for the Isles’ organization. [Newsday]
• For one thing, it has garnered the Islanders a lot of attention they otherwise would not have by being on the national stage. [NY Post]
• For another thing, it is surely accelerating Mathew Barzal’s on-ice maturation. [Best @ Newsday]

Elsewhere

• The Capitals hired Peter Laviolette as their next coach. Like Trotz, he went from Nashville to Washington in less than a season. [NHL | Japers Rink]
• Will Laviolette be able to fix what ails the Caps? I’d guess yes, he seems like a good fit there. Like someone who could get the veterans’ attention. [ESPN]
• The Wild signed defenseman Jonas Brodin to a seven-year, $42 million contract extension. [NHL | Sportsnet]
• The Panthers are expected to part ways with assistant coach Mike Kitchen after it was alleged he “full on” kicked a player in the lower back behind the bench back in January. [TSN |
• Florida also announced they hired former GMs Rick Dudley and Paul Fenton as advisors and brought some former players, Gregory Campbell and Blake Geoffrion, into the front office. [NHL]