![\"Andrew](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775242454_337_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nIt\u2019s OK not to pay attention.<\/p>\n
To clarify, it\u2019s OK for the Islanders to not breathlessly watch the out-of-town scoreboard as they continued their postseason push against fellow playoff contender the Flyers on Friday night at UBS Arena.<\/p>\n
One might have thought it would be the opposite for the Islanders, especially after receiving the gift of favorable results on Thursday night with the Penguins, Blue Jackets and Flyers all losing in regulation.<\/p>\n
Tuesday was also a good night as the Blue Jackets, Flyers and Senators all lost in regulation though the Penguins, in second place in the Metropolitan Division, won to open a three-point lead on the third-place Islanders.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s OK for the Islanders to not be glued to the out-of-town matches because time devoted to the scoreboard takes away from time needed to focus on themselves. Friday\u2019s crucial mission was to snap a two-game losing streak that has come at the most inopportune time after getting blasted by the visiting Penguins on Monday night and dropping a 4-3 decision in Buffalo on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
So the Islanders\u2019 task is actually a simple one: Don\u2019t let the teams chasing them catch up.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course we\u2019re happy and it\u2019s nice when you can get some help,\u201d Mathew Barzal said. \u201cAfter the Buffalo game, I was following along with the Columbus-Carolina game [on Thursday night] and it just felt, it just felt \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n
Barzal paused a couple of beats to make sure he phrased his thought correctly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt low to be like rooting for a team to lose when we\u2019re in a position where, as long as we win, we\u2019re good,\u201d Barzal said. \u201cSo as much as we do want teams to give us some help, I think the right thing to do is just go out and win hockey games and get in on our own.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cTrust me, I\u2019m rooting for every team to lose,\u201d Barzal said. \u201cI wish there was no winner in any game other than us. But I think you\u2019d just rather be in a position where you don\u2019t have to root for that kind of stuff and you can go out and just win and create your own path.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each player follows along with the scoreboard to varying degrees. Many players have young children and simply don\u2019t have the time to watch the out-of-town games. But just as many hockey players are also true fans of the sport and take great interest in what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n
The point is, doing one or the other ultimately does not factor into deciding the Islanders\u2019 fate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t change anything,\u201d coach Patrick Roy said. \u201cYou focus on tonight\u2019s game. You know everybody\u2019s watching every game. Everybody\u2019s watching the standings, don\u2019t get me wrong here. But, at the end of the day, it\u2019s about what you do. There\u2019s no need for us to get our mind anywhere else than tonight\u2019s game. It\u2019s a lot easier to keep your focus for 60 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you start thinking about what happens around and thinking about winning a game before winning the game, this is where problems start. You let your mind go in the wrong place and it\u2019s easy to lose your focus, it\u2019s easy to lose your momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n
So Roy probably didn\u2019t study this projection from MoneyPuck.com in calculating the Islanders\u2019 chances of qualifying for the playoffs after last season\u2019s miss.<\/p>\n
The website reported the Islanders\u2019 chances of making it would increase by 13.5% to 75.3% if they beat the Flyers in regulation. Meanwhile, a regulation loss to the Flyers would drop their playoff chances by 21.6% to just 40.2%. Even an overtime\/shootout win upped the Islanders\u2019 chances 10.4% to 72.2% while an overtime\/shootout loss would drop them 7.1% to 54.7%.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s great for fans to know so they can be extra tense. Those numbers matter none to the players.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t look too much on it, to be honest,\u201d Emil Heineman said when asked about the favorable scoreboard results. \u201cWe watched a little bit of the Dallas game and that was it and then I went to bed looking forward to this game. There\u2019s a bunch of guys that keep track. I don\u2019t want to worry about that too much. It changes all the time so I figured it would take more energy than it gives you.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s OK. As long as the Islanders win.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n\tAndrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John\u2019s and MLB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s OK not to pay attention. To clarify, it\u2019s OK for the Islanders to not breathlessly watch the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5112],"tags":[1468,5,159,4,1467,56,5205],"class_list":{"0":"post-538955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-flyers","8":"tag-flyers","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-new-york-islanders","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","14":"tag-philadelphiaflyers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116342297457407390","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538955","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=538955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}