Islanders' 'Future Looks Bright' After Semifinal Loss

This one stung.
Any time a season comes to an end without having fulfilled the ultimate goal of hoisting the Stanley Cup there's guaranteed disappointment. But being one of just four teams remaining in the fight - a feat accomplished for the second-straight year - and losing by a minuscule margin of 1-0 in Game 7 of the semifinals to the very team that defeated them last year, wasn't just heartbreaking, it was harrowing. But despite all of that, Head Coach Barry Trotz brought up a good point in his season-ending media availability.
"There's only one happy team," Trotz said. "How many teams right now would have liked to have been the Islanders? There are only two teams that maybe wouldn't want to be the Islanders right now."

The New York Islanders are a proud group, and this year, they set out on a mission. They locked their sights on completing the task they were unable to during last year's 2020 Stanley Cup bubble run where they fell 2-1 in overtime of Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Final to the eventual champions in the Tampa Bay Lightning.
This year, they fell just short again.

"The sting really comes from losing," Scott Mayfield said. "That's all I care about, that's all our team cares about. We just want to win.
"Last year, we were confident, we were happy with [reaching the ECF]," Mayfield continued. "This year, it stings even more. I'm happy with the way I played, I'm happy with the way the team played, but we wanted more."
While last year's berth to the team's first Eastern Conference Final appearance since 1993 may have had a storybook element to it, this year was different. Returning to the third round was the new bar, the expectation. From the Day 1 of January's training camp, the goal for this determined group was to win the Stanley Cup.
"Any time you get close, as close as we did to the Stanley Cup, it drives you," Mathew Barzal said. "It keeps that fire lit. Last year, Game 6 after that, you could get a sense right away in the locker room. In the first week of training camp, guys were hungry and we wanted to get back there."
And they did. In fact, they made it farther than last year. This time, they pushed the reigning Stanley Cup champs to the brink of elimination with a winner-take-all Game 7.
The outcome was undeniably disheartening and devastating for the Islanders, who had faced - and embraced - so much adversity in order to make it back to the semifinals. Despite having a limited offseason, enduring a taxing 56-game regular season in arguably the toughest division, abiding by strict COVID-19 protocols, playing in front of empty arenas and losing their captain Anders Lee to a torn ACL in March, the Islanders rose to the challenge.
Tampa Bay Head Coach Jon Cooper remarked following their Game 7 win that, "The Islanders were as good a team as we've played...It was unbelievably difficult. That's as close as two teams can be."
That's something the Islanders can take pride in.
"It sucked how it finished, [but] at the end of the day, we had a great run again," Jean-Gabriel Pageau said. "We were able to create an identity or a culture to make the Islanders a tough team to play against. If you're going to play us, it's going to hurt. It's going to be tough to beat us."

Since Islanders President and General Manager Lou Lamoriello and Trotz took over the club during the summer of 2018, the team has bought in, established a detailed culture and taken meaningful strides year-after-year.
Over the last three regular seasons, the Islanders have averaged the fewest goals against in the NHL at 2.46, ranked third in hits (5,401) and second in blocks (3,245) and have taken the fourth-fewest penalties (647).
In the span of the last three postseasons, the Islanders have led the NHL in games played with 49 (ranking prior to the 2021 Stanley Cup beginning). They did so with a group of core players that came together after a disappointing 2017-18 season, never wavering from their belief in each other.
"One of the greatest things about this team and the people who joined this team, via trade deadline acquisitions or whatever is just the complete buy-in," Matt Martin said. "It's a special group of guys that have all bought in or one another and want to do it the right way. That's why not getting the job done hurts as much as it does."
And while the Islanders are still reeling in the emotional, physical and mental toll of their agonizing Game 7 loss, they've already found some solace in trusting the process, or the journey as Trotz refers to it as.
He made it a point to emphasize the barricades that the Lightning faced en route to claiming the 2020 Stanley Cup and the first under Cooper. The Bolts journey featured plenty of heartache along the way with two First-Round exits - including the 2019 sweep by Columbus after being the Presidents' Trophy recipients - two conference final losses (2016 and 2018) and one Stanley Cup Final loss (2015). These two runs to the cusp of the Final are learning moments for the Islanders.
"A lot of teams that win, they've been in spots like that," Adam Pelech said. "They've gone to the conference finals and lost in Game 7. It's not always the first time or the second time, that you're going to win. You need to go through that and grow as a group. [You need] to be ready for the next time and take that opportunity."

Most importantly, the message that resonates is;
"You have to keep going back," Trotz said.
While the end of this 2021 run resulted in anguish, the Islanders know they'll be better for it in the big picture. And despite the sour ending, the run was underscored with sweet moments that will last a lifetime. They provided the Coliseum with one final spirited run, provided a sense of normalcy to their passionate fan base as the world still recovers from the lingering effects of the pandemic and ultimately, affirmed the belief this group has in themselves and their abilities.
While breakup day is clouded by the pain of what could have been, the Islanders know a beaming future awaits beginning with the opening of their brand-new home at UBS Arena and a reinvigorated desire to complete their ultimate goal. They're a group that takes care of each other, is proud of giving it their all day-in and day-out and doesn't shrink no matter the magnitude of any circumstance.
They have trust in the process. It's not a matter of if, but when.
"The future looks really bright," Trotz said. "[We're] starting to have a constant effect at being a threat and that's all we want to be. In this business, that's all you can be is a constant threat to winning the Stanley Cup year-in and year-out. The first step is making the playoffs and that's getting harder and harder to do every year. To this point so far, mission accomplished, but we're not totally accomplished in terms of our end goal. Our end goal is to win a Stanley Cup. Just like the 32 other teams now in the league, that won't change, but you have to be consistent at it. I think we're making strides that way."