Some of them may have learned their fate while on the Cross Bronx Expressway, others maybe on the LIE or Grand Central, and others perhaps on the Verrazano or Throgs Neck as the Islanders made their way home by car service following Saturday’s 4-2 victory over the Devils in Newark that kept their playoff hearts beating for at least an hour or so.
But only for that hour or so.
Because while the Islanders were still on the road, the Maple Leafs scored three times in the third period to defeat the Penguins, 5-3, in Toronto to clinch a playoff spot and eliminate the Islanders.
The roads the Islanders were traveling were roads to nowhere and dead ends to the hopes of building on last spring’s first playoff series victory in 23 years. The straight five wins over the last nine days were not enough to overcome the three straight defeats immediately preceding the streak and the underachieving folly that defined the season’s first three months.
“I don’t think there is anyone in here who doesn’t believe we are a playoff team,” Anders Lee said.
Believe it or not, boy was this a step back for the franchise that is now faced with uncertainty of significant proportions entering the second summer of the Scott Malkin-Jon Ledecky ownership that is expected to hire a president to oversee the hockey operation that has been run with autonomy since 2006 by general manager Garth Snow.
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The coaching position, filled so ably on an interim basis by assistant general manager Doug Weight, is an open question. Does Weight, 23-12-4 since succeeding Jack Capuano on Jan. 18, want it on a full-time basis? Would an incoming president retain Snow or would there be a change in that position that would trigger a coaching search?
The intentions of John Tavares, who is now one season away from free agency, are as unknown as the arena the Islanders will call home in another two or three years.
So, really, the summer presents as open a question as whether the Islanders would be on the outside looking in on the tournament if Jaro Halak had not been consigned to AHL Bridgeport for three months before his March 23 recall that triggered the Islanders’ finishing flourish?
“I don’t look at what happened in the past,” Halak said after his 37-save performance that contained four breakaway stops over the scoreless opening 22:48 in which his team was outshot 17-4 out of the gates. “That’s the past. I look at what’s happening now.”
Someone in authority certainly will review the decision to demote Halak in order that the team could retain goaltender Jean-Francois Berube, who is now eligible for unrestricted free agency after having started seven games this season and 13 over his two years on the roster throughout which he has played 926 minutes.
For these five straight wins, the last four of which were attained without the injured Taveras, all belonged to Halak, who has won all six of his post-recall starts with a .954 save percentage and 1.47 goals against average.
“He’s been excellent,” Weight. said. “His numbers, his attitude. His confidence runs through the team.”
Before they left The Rock, before they learned of their fate, the Islanders talked about hoping they would have one more meaningful game to play. They hoped that this late kick might have been enough. Jason Chimera, who scored the 3-0 goal early in the third period, said he would “Pray to the hockey gods.”
But this isn’t a game that rewards prayers as much as it does a coherent 82-game effort. That was lacking this time around following a summer in which veterans Frans Nielsen, Kyle Okposo and Matt Martin all defected via free agency. That was lacking through an opening 20 games in which the Islanders won just six times (6-10-4). They were last in the East as late as Dec. 22.
And yet Capuano was retained for almost another month. And yet the Islanders were either unwilling or unable to pull off a major trade. And so this, a late charge in which Lee elevated himself and in which Josh Ho-Sang encouragingly dipped his toes into the NHL waters, even if they have gotten cold over the past 12 games — in which No. 66 has scored one time.
The Islanders didn’t curl up in a ball and die when they could have. That is worth something. How much is ownership’s call.