The banal truth is that everything comes to an end, both good and bad. Pittsburgh fans were convinced of this once again on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, when the New York Islanders, led by Ilya Sorokin beat Montreal (4:2) and officially flew past participation in the Stanley Cup. The Penguins’ surprising loss to Chicago on Tuesday opened the way for the Islanders to win a cup wild card, which Sorokin’s team took advantage of.
Pittsburgh’s loss to one of the league’s worst teams came a day after the same Islanders provided the Penguins with a golden opportunity to make the playoffs with a loss to Washington. Everything depended on the Malkin team, which did not need to look at the opponents: if Pittsburgh had won their last two games (on Thursday they played Columbus), they would have made the playoffs. The Islanders, in turn, made the playoffs for the fourth time in five years after last year’s absence.
Thus, “Pittsburgh” and “Washington” synchronously miss the playoffs. For the first time since the 2005/2006 season, Ovechkin and Malkin will not play in cup matches. The Capitals made the playoffs for eight consecutive seasons before being eliminated from the race on April 4. The main reason for Pittsburgh’s failure is age: the Penguins, as of April 12, were the oldest team in NHL with an average age of 31 years (Washington is in second place, 30.9 years).
Longest playoff streaks to end this season:
Pittsburgh – 16 years old
“Washington” – 8 years,
Nashville – 8 years.
As for the Islanders, the main character of the team this spring was the goalkeeper Ilya Sorokinwho carried the team. In the decisive game with Montreal, the Russian did not play brilliantly and even made a frank scoring mistake in the episode with Nick Suzuki’s goal, but the Islanders brought the match to victory.
A truly golden goal for the Islanders was the goal of their legend Brock Nelson, who has been playing for the team for more than ten years and has never played for any other NHL club.
In this match, Sorokin repelled 17 shots out of 19 and did not impress a superman, who was called a contender for Vezina, but the result was achieved. In the course of the regular season, Ilya defeated Pittsburgh in four out of four matches – who will say that these games were not decisive in the end? By the way, in the case of the potential receipt of Vezina, the Islanders’ entry into the playoffs is of decisive importance: if the Islanders had not made it to the top eight, then Ilya would definitely not have received any individual prize. In the current situation, he has a chance, although the competition in the person of Linus Ullmark from Boston is very serious.
Now all the participants in the Stanley Cup 2023 are known. From the West, these are Dallas, Colorado, Minnesota, Vegas, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Seattle, Winnipeg, from the East – Carolina, New Jersey, Rangers, Boston, Toronto, Tampa Bay, Islanders and Florida. The pairs of the first round will be determined on the night from Thursday to Friday – on the last big game day of the regular season.