from Brett Cyrgalis of the New York Post,

As the Islanders head home with soft smirks on their collective faces, they can look in the rearview mirror and see the rest of the NHL left slack-jawed.

That’s just the way they like it, and Islanders completed their sweep of the Penguins with a 3-1 win in Game 4 of their first-round series Tuesday night, wrapping things up with one more tidy performance.

Under the stewardship of first-year head coach Barry Trotz, they played a defensive game that sucked the life out of the Penguins, utterly frustrating a team lined with championship pedigree. The Islanders suffered very few down moments, very few weak spots, and showed nothing but more group resolve.

That’s the story of their season as they keep proving people wrong.

“That’s been a little bit of the storyline here, and we’re used to it,” captain Anders Lee said. “We’re used to it being in our room. It’s not just this year, it’s kind of always been that way. This year, we’ve really taken it on and run with it.”

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from Tim Benz of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,

Watching the Islanders sweep the Penguins in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals was like watching the Steelers defense at the end of the Dick LeBeau era.

They kept trying to do the same things they’ve always done, even though those things stopped working long before they were willing to admit.

This edition of the Mike Sullivan Penguins isn’t as fast as the group he coached to Stanley Cup titles in 2016 and 2017. The roster isn’t as deep, either. They don’t have the net-front presence or team energy they once did. And the insatiable hunger to win we noticed two years ago isn’t as evident as it once was.

“They were a little bit hungrier,” center Evgeni Malkin said of the Islanders. “They want more to win. They were blocking shots, forecheck, backcheck. They looked like they want more to win.”

Yup. That’s the way it looked. It also looked like they were more willing to listen to their coach.

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Below watch the game highlights.