3 reasons the New York Islanders didn't win the Stanley Cup
The New York Islanders are not going to win the Stanley Cup this year for these three reasons.
The New York Islanders are not going to be the Stanley Cup champions this season. They deserve a lot of praise for even getting into the playoffs but it didn't get them beyond round number one.
They took on the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round and were defeated in five games. To their credit, they played well early in their series but the talent of the Hurricanes played a big role in New York's demise.
Now, they will have to head into the off-season thinking about why they didn't win and address those needs. It isn't always an easy task as 31 teams end up wondering what could have been different.
These are the three biggest reasons that the Islanders won't be hoisting the Stanley Cup later in June:
The New York Islanders don't have enough offensive game-breakers
Mat Barzal is a very good player that can change a game. The Islanders have other good offensive players and goal scorers like Anders Lee, Kyle Palmieri, and Bo Horvat amongst others but none of them is elite.
The Hurricanes, and every other Cup contender, have elite offensive players who can make big-time plays at five-on-five at any point in time.
Even a few of the teams that didn't make the playoffs (Pittsburgh Penguins, Buffalo Sabres, and New Jersey Devils) have more offensive firepower than the Islanders.
This problem came out in the series against Carolina. With some of the chances that the Islanders were able to create, they didn't have enough skill to finish them off.
If New Jersey or Pittsburgh were in their shoes, Carolina might have had a tough start to the series but the Islanders weren't able to make them pay.
The Islanders couldn't overcome the depth of the Hurricanes
The New York Islanders did a good job shutting down certain players on the Hurricanes. Although they had their moments, guys like Jake Guentzel and Sebastian Aho were not as threatening as we've become used to seeing them.
However, there was too much depth on the Hurricanes for the Islanders to handle. The fact that they did well against some players kept them from stopping others.
One player in particular, Seth Jarvis, was huge for Carolina against New York. He had seven points in the five games played during this series. He had more points than anyone on either side.
With the aforementioned lack of scoring that the Islanders have, it is hard for them to overcome all of the depth that the Hurricanes have.
Now, if Jarvis gets shut down by the New York Rangers in the second round, you'd think that the other big boys get going. The Islanders don't have a similar luxury.
Goaltending wasn't the difference for the Islanders in this series
Patrick Roy decided to go with Semyon Varlamov for this series. Despite having Ilya Sorokin, who is widely considered one of the best goaltenders in the world having a down year, they went with Varlamov.
Varlamov was good. Roy had him when he was the coach of the Avalanche so it wasn't very surprising to see him go with his guy when Sorokin was struggling.
The veteran goaltender had a 2.70 goals against and a .914 save percentage. This clearly shows that he made a lot of saves but the Islanders didn't play very well in front of him.
Because the team in front didn't play better, Varlamov wasn't able to be the difference in the series. Frederik Anderson had a .912 save percentage and a 2.25 save percentage which are great numbers as well.
Because they were about even in terms of their performance, the goaltending wasn't the difference. The Hurricanes were simply the better team and are moving on as a result.
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