It has been a long time since the New York Islanders played that well against a playoff team and kept up that effort for the full sixty minutes. Last night, they beat a Boston Bruins team sans Brad Marchand but welcoming back Patrice Bergeron.
The Islanders most certainly earned their two points from that game, as well as the four-point ground gain by defeating Boston in regulation.
This all likely will not matter in the long run; the deficit is just too steep. But on the off chance that the Isles do string together 20 wins in a row and pull themselves back into the hunt for real, then we will look back on this game and appreciate its importance—not that we don’t appreciate it now, but that it’s a lot more fun if it means something.