from Ethan Sears of the New York Post,
The Islanders’ season-long kryptonite of holding a lead had gone away for a while.
But it reared its ugly head at the worst possible moment on Monday night, as the Islanders took a 3-0 lead and turned it into a 5-3 loss to the Hurricanes to go down 2-0 in the first round of the playoffs after Carolina scored three times in the last 2:30 to complete the comeback, with Jordan Martinook netting the winner.
It’s the second time the Islanders have blown a 3-0 lead against the Hurricanes this season, but unlike the first one on Nov. 4, this will be excruciatingly tough to get over....
It looked as though the Islanders — despite having sat back and absorbed pressure for most of the night — would somehow get out of the night alive when they entered the final three minutes hanging onto a 3-2 lead....
But quickly following Carolina’s timeout with 2:49 to go, Sebastian Aho deflected in Andrei Svechnikov’s shot at the right post with the extra attacker on for Carolina.
Just nine seconds later, Martinook completed the Islanders’ collapse, beating Noah Dobson to the left post off the faceoff and sticking the puck in.
“Obviously the tying goal, we lost our coverage,” said a shell-shocked Patrick Roy. “I was going to call a timeout right there and I said, ‘We’ll see if the puck goes in our zone. If it goes in our zone, I will call a timeout to cool off a bit.’
Catch the game highlights here.