It was not a warning. Not really, anyway.<\/p>\n
The words that tumbled forth from Brayden Schenn were more an acknowledgment of the obvious. But they came with a caveat.<\/p>\n
Yes, the Islanders are in the enviable position of being chased for a Stanley Cup Playoff berth with just a handful games remaining in the 2025-26 regular season instead of having to chase. Still, as the Stanley Cup-winner pointed out to Newsday, that is a benefit only if they are able to win games and earn points.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did some good things [against Pittsburgh and Buffalo],\u201d Schenn said following a spirited 30-minute practice Thursday morning at Northwell Health Ice Center. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t do enough good things to win hockey games. So being chased is always a thing. I know teams have games in hand on us now but at the end of the day we have to worry about controlling what we can, and that\u2019s winning hockey games.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the Islanders, who begin the final six games of their 2025-26 regular season Friday night at UBS Arena against the Flyers with a record of 42-29-5 and 89 points, the question is what do they have to do over the next week-and-a-half in order to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the 30th time in franchise history?<\/p>\n
Shot generation and shot suppression are good starting points, since both were problematic areas in their 8-3 loss to Pittsburgh on home ice Monday and their 4-3 loss to the Sabres in Buffalo Tuesday.<\/p>\n
According to hockey analytics website NaturalStatTrick.com, the Islanders were outshot 30-20, out-attempted 47-32, and allowed 17 more high-danger chances than they created (24-7) against the Penguins. Twenty-four hours later, the Islanders were outshot 25-15, out-attempted 51-32, and had nine fewer high-danger chances than the Sabres (12-3).<\/p>\n
It is somewhat difficult to win hockey games when a team is not generating scoring chances while, simultaneously, yielding scoring chances.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we played a good game against Buffalo. There\u2019s a few things we could clean up here and there,\u201d coach Patrick Roy said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be important for us to have a good start and play a good game at home. I think we\u2019re all disappointed [with]\u00a0the loss [to]\u00a0Pittsburgh and we want to make sure we play a good game here at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playing well on home ice has been a season-long trend for the Islanders, whose 21-13-2 mark at\u00a0home ranks 13th in the NHL according to data culled by StatMuse.com. And the Islanders play five of their final six games at UBS Arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s massive,\u201d Jean-Gabriel Pageau said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been on the road so much and the travel part, from what I\u2019ve learned [from]\u00a0experience, it always catches up towards the end of the year. Just to have that final stretch at home will be massive for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is the good news.<\/p>\n
The not-quite-as-good news is that, hours after they departed their East Meadow practice facility, the Islanders found themselves in the role of interested, albeit powerless, observer.<\/p>\n
Because four of the teams chasing them \u2014 Columbus (38-25-12, 88 points), Ottawa (38-26-10, 86 points), Detroit (39-27-8, 86 points) and Philadelphia (37-25-12, 86 points) \u2014 all were in action.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets entered the day in the second wild-card spot in the East, and the Senators, Red Wings\u00a0and Flyers are the first three teams under the playoff cut line.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets called on Metropolitan Division-leading Carolina.\u00a0 The Senators skated against the Sabres while the Red Wings and Flyers went head-to-head.<\/p>\n
So, the possibility existed that by the end of the evening the Islanders could find themselves in the second wild card if the Blue Jackets beat the Hurricanes, and perhaps only a point ahead of two of the Senators, Red Wings, and\/or Flyers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe control our own destiny,\u201d Carson Soucy said. \u201cWe\u2019re in the spot right now so we have to win some games.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was not a warning. Not really, anyway. The words that tumbled forth from Brayden Schenn were more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5110],"tags":[5,122,3328,159,5190,5189,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-537248","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-islanders","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-islanders","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-islanders","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkislanders","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116337133818499552","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}