Now it’s on Barry Trotz to pull some more magic out of his hat.
The Islanders coach has mixed and matched pretty well over the past two games, dealing with the absence of a regular third-line center while his team managed to clinch a playoff spot with Saturday night’s rousing 5-1 win over the Sabres at the Coliseum.
That’s the situation he is going to have to continue to deal with at least deep into the first round, as the team announced Sunday that Tanner Fritz will be out six to eight weeks after having surgery to deal with a blood clot in his hand. The man whose place he took, Valterri Filppula, has started skating while dealing with a presumed left-shoulder injury, but he should remain out another three weeks or so.
Three games remain in the regular season, and it starts with John Tavares’ encore on Long Island when his Maple Leafs come back to the Coliseum on Monday night. The former Islanders captain first returned on Feb. 28 to a raucous and bloodthirsty crowd. The fans will surely remind Tavares their team is better without him, having now made the playoffs for the first time since 2016. And surely that energy will rile up the Islanders rather than let them slink through what could have been a clinching-hangover game.
It’s also the final home game of the regular season, with the Islanders finishing up with a game in Sunrise, Fla., against the Panthers on Thursday, and then the finale in Washington on Saturday night — a game that could mean quite a lot as far as home ice is concerned, and possibly even the Metropolitan Division crown.
But Trotz does have to figure what he wants his lineup to look like when Game 1 of whatever playoff series comes his way. General manager Lou Lamoriello told reporters Sunday that no call-up was imminent — so, again, winger Josh Ho-Sang remains with AHL Bridgeport. So Trotz has to figure it out with what he has right now.
If this were a lineup where all pieces were presumed equal, adjusting could be a little bit easier. But the “best fourth line in hockey” of Matt Martin, Casey Cizikas and Cal Clutterbuck has shown to be much more than the sum of its parts. Rather than breaking them up, Trotz brought veteran Tom Kuhnhackl back into the lineup when Fritz went down, and put him on what is ostensibly a third line without a pure center with Anthony Beauvillier and Leo Komarov.
When the team faced three separate two-goal deficits in Winnipeg on Thursday, Trotz sat Martin for the final 36:14 of the game and played Beauvillier with Cizikas and Clutterbuck. They were a good trio, bringing out the more offensive upside that remains within both Cizikas and Clutterbuck. It just so happens they also helped propel the Islanders to one of the most dramatic wins of the season, Cizikas scoring to tie the game with 1:46 left in regulation before Jordan Eberle netted the game-winner 33 seconds later.
Expect that to be the template going forward.It’s hard to think Martin would not still start every game with his running mates, but there will likely be more turns on that left wing for Beauvillier. That will marginalize the even-strength playing time for Komarov and Kuhnhackl, with both of them staying fresh for their most important roles — killing penalties. If they can keep going twice during every man-down, then that would also result in saving some energy for Brock Nelson — if not also Cizikas and Clutterbuck.
So the third and fourth lines now become more of a mishmash, with Trotz orchestrating the whole thing as game situations dictate. Up to this point in his first season behind the Islanders bench, Trotz has done very little wrong. But as he repeatedly says, the strength of the team is its collective effort.
Now, on the verge of the postseason, he just has to figure out how to get that with 3 ¹/₂ lines.