The playoffs began last night for the Islanders. Actually, they began about 24 hours before the puck dropped for last night’s monumental Coliseum date with the hated Rangers. That’s when the Isles went into lockdown mode.
The Islanders had a chance last night, with a win, to clinch their second consecutive playoff berth. The icing on that cake, of course, was that in doing so it would eliminate their archrivals from the playoffs.
“Obviously knocking the Rangers out isn’t our sole purpose,” Adrian Aucoin said. “The rivalry makes it a little bit better.”
The Rangers were on the verge of missing the playoffs for the sixth straight year. That’s nothing compared to the eight years the Islanders went without a tournament berth, a run that ended last year with a win over Washington.
But last night presented a different type of challenge for the Isles, who were looking to rebound from their most embarrassing performance of the year, a 6-0 loss in New Jersey on Sunday.
Some Islanders stayed in hotels Monday night, some stayed together and watched the Rangers lose in overtime to the Thrashers, and others went home to their wives and families following a team dinner.
Yesterday morning, the team held its morning skate secretly at its Syosset practice facility – a league violation – and made few players available to the media so they could get their minds in the right place.
GM Mike Milbury, when he was coaching the Bruins to the 1990 Stanley Cup Finals, is famous for holing up his team in a “Hotel No-Tell,” a tactic used to scare players straight and keep them focused on the task at hand. But this Islanders’ stay was strictly optional.
“When you talk about playoff atmosphere, you try to eliminate the distraction,” Michael Peca said.
Local media members were called an hour before the regularly scheduled 10:30 a.m. skate at the Coliseum and were told the session was cancelled. Only when they arrived for pregame access to players, The Post discovered the Isles had, in fact, skated, and the reason for “canceling” was to shield players from the press.
*
Kenny Jonsson (post-traumatic migraines) was a game-time decision. Rookie enforcer Eric Godard was recalled from Bridgeport . . . Isles went into last night losers of two straight and four in a row at home.