Off on Easter Sunday, and still biding time waiting for their next playoff opponent to be determined, the Islanders are naturally taking a businesslike attitude to the Stanley Cup playoffs, and focusing on the task at hand every day, one day at a time.
But the events of the first round so far _ Presidents' Trophy winner Tampa Bay getting swept out of the playoffs by wild card Columbus; the Western Conference's top seed, Calgary, losing to wild card Colorado in five games; Winnipeg going down to St. Louis _ have opened a door for all remaining teams to chase the Stanley Cup. And Mathew Barzal is willing to admit that, yes, he's dreaming of winning the whole thing now.
"Oh, absolutely. Absolutely," Barzal told Newsday on Saturday, as the Isles practiced before taking Sunday off. "We're human in here. We know what we're chasing. ... You want to be able to see that end goal. Day-to-day focus is on our team, and the next series, and just getting ourselves ready. But you still want to see the end of the tunnel, and it's cool to know that we're chasing the Stanley Cup."
With three legitimate contenders already out in Tampa Bay, Calgary and Winnipeg, and with two others _ Boston and Toronto _ playing each other in the first round, Barzal said "it's anyone's Cup" now. And that anyone includes the Islanders. According to vegasinsider.com, the Isles are the fourth choice among remaining teams to win the Cup, with odds of 13-2. Washington, the defending Stanley Cup champions, is the leader, at 5-1, with St. Louis and the Vegas Golden Knights (last season's runner-up) next at 6-1, followed by the Islanders, and then the Colorado Avalanche, Columbus and Toronto, each at 7-1. There are other sites that have the Islanders as the top choice to win, as well.
"If you hit it right, and your team's feeling it at the right time and your goaltender's hot, anybody can beat anybody," Islanders coach Barry Trotz, who won the Cup a year ago as coach of Washington, said. "When you get to the second round, honestly, the eight teams that are here believe they're going to win the Stanley Cup. Every one of them. And we're one of them. And you have to have that belief until you get knocked out. And once you get to the next round, you're down to four, and you really believe that you're going to win it."
Trotz said the NHL, due to the salary cap and other factors, has more parity than people realize. He recalled some years ago, while coaching Washington, that his team was the Presidents' Trophy winner and matched up against the bottom seed in the East, Toronto. His team really wasn't that much better than the Maple Leafs, he said.
"All we did was win one game a month more than the Toronto Maple Leafs," he said. "That was it. And you can do it on the front end. You can do it on the back end _ whatever. But everybody says there's this giant gap. There isn't as big of a gap (in a best-of-seven playoff series) as a sample size over 82 (regular season games)."
Barzal said he always believed in his team, but things got much more realistic once the Islanders dominated Pittsburgh, the back-to-back champions in 2016 and 2017, in the first round.
"I'd say _ I mean, I knew, late in the season that we were in a good spot, but, it was just, really worried about getting in the playoffs, and that was really the mindset throughout the regular season," he said. "And, you know, geez, after Game 2 or 3 against Pittsburgh, I think there was a real belief in here that there's not a team in the league we can't beat. So, yeah, for me, it was after Game 3 in Pittsburgh: I was like, 'Wow, this is for real. We can definitely make a run here.' Not that I wasn't confident before, but it became super-real that we're right in it now, eh?"
Trotz, meanwhile, admitted he's hoping the Washington-Carolina series _ whose winner will be the Islanders' second-round opponent _ goes the maximum seven games.
"You know what? You do," he said. "I mean, you know _ every game takes a little piece of you. I remember playing the Islanders _ it was five years ago, now _ we went seven games and went toe-to-toe with the Islanders and were able to win, and we started two days later, and we actually played, I believe it was the Rangers _ we were exhausted. We actually won the first two games, and then, as they started getting their game together, we started falling apart, a little bit."
