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New York Islanders: What beating the Flyers twice in a row truly means

By John Carroll Jr.

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 22: Mathew Barzal (Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 22: Mathew Barzal (Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images) /
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The New York Islanders’ season is well underway. They began the second quarter of the season after Thanksgiving by sweeping the Flyers in a home-away series. Here’s what that really means:

Both New York Islanders games against the Philadelphia Flyers went into overtime. The Islanders won both of them but how can two games possible set an encouraging tone? Because both games were very different despite involving the same opponent.

The Isles proved what I initially knew, that the team seems to be very good at home. The Isles played the Flyers at home on Wednesday and won that one by the score of 4-3.

Here’s the thing: the game was back and forth as the Isles found themselves down twice, then up again, then tied, then up for good.

The teams went back and forth, but the Isles got more shots on goal and showed their consistent offense.

The Metropolitan Division is going to be very difficult to win and if the Islanders’ win at home showed us anything, it’s that the Barclays Center is going to be tough for opponents to play at for big games down the stretch.

The road win, the latter of the home-away series against Philadelphia, was more impressive. The Isles gave up four second period goals and found themselves down 4-2 after 40 minutes but they were not done.

They rallied back in the third period to force overtime and then won the game in OT.

The Isles proved many things that were encouraging for a team who has a lot of divisional games left.

Poor goaltending doesn’t affect them.

The Isles goaltenders are underachieving and to have as bad a stretch as they did against the Flyers, giving up seven total goals, is not good.

The team proved they can overcome that and always have an answer to bail their goalies out. That is a huge thing they proved against the Flyers that I’m looking forward to seeing again.

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The team wins battles.

Comebacks, back and forth battles, and OT winners. It didn’t matter where the Isles found themselves on the scoreboard. Once the third-period clock struck 0:00, they had themselves at least a point.

The Islanders have all the young and developing talent in the world. But talent doesn’t help if they don’t play smart and they don’t play with heart.

The Isles are very good in OT.

They still sit at only two OT losses all year. They just won back-to-back OT games. The two overtime losses are one of the lowest totals in the  Eastern Conference.

Good teams get to overtime, great teams win in overtime.

Next: Assessing the New York Islanders through their first 20 games

I’m going to pretend the Flyers are like every team in the Metro and that the Isles will always give themselves a chance to win no matter who they face.

This team looks good so far. Really good.

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