from Mark Herrmann of Newsday,
You won’t see the Islanders in the Winter Classic, the Jan. 1 centerpiece in which Chicago has played four times (all losses, including one at Notre Dame’s football stadium Tuesday). But at this moment, there is no team as fetching, quirky and compelling as the one that plays (most of the time now) on Long Island.
No one else can match the mix of nostalgia, excitement, bitterness, uncertainty and hope that the Islanders have put together in a season that looks a whole lot better than we thought it would.
Few saw this coming, this stretch of five straight wins and eight in nine games, the latest a 3-2 overtime victory over Chicago on Thursday claimed by an overtime goal by minor-league call-up Devon Toews, who never had scored in the NHL before.
“I don’t think I ever dreamed about it,” he said. “Growing up, it was more just trying to make the NHL and make that dream come true. I never thought about scoring or anything.”
The anything-is-possible motif is courtesy of coach Barry Trotz, who spent roughly half of 2018 winning the Stanley Cup in Washington and the other half lighting a fire under a franchise that seemed to have lost its wick when captain and superstar John Tavares left.
“It’s been very interesting, it’s been enlightening, it’s been fulfilling, it’s been a challenge,” Trotz said. “It’s been all of the above. Everything that life has to bring, I’ve had all of it. The good, bad and ugly in a lot of ways. That’s what makes coaching and life interesting because it’s not the same thing every day.”
Watch the OT goal by Toews below.
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