The New York Islanders, Preparing For UBS Arena’s First Playoff Game, Embrace The Anti-Tank

Each one of the Islanders’ seven playoff appearances over the last 11 seasons — a very appropriate ratio for this particular franchise — has been accompanied by a clear narrative.

The 2013 team making the playoffs in the lockout-shortened 48-game season provided catharsis to a team and a fan base that had just endured five straight last-place finishes. The 2014-15 and 2015-16 editions qualifying for the tournament marked the arrival of the Islanders as a yearly contender while offering a worthy exclamation point to the end of an era Nassau Coliseum (yeah, about that…) and an encouraging start for a club now based in and embracing Brooklyn and Barclays Center (yeah, about that…).

Three straight playoff berths under Barry Trotz during the springs and summers of 2019, 2020 and 2021 cemented the Islanders as legitimate contenders to finally win that fifth Stanley Cup while generating a second final hurrah at the Coliseum that served as a bridge to a truly new and sturdy era at UBS Arena.

The long-awaited permanent home for the Islanders getting a chance to host a playoff game for the first time tonight — when the Islanders face the Hurricanes in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference first-round series — would seem to serve as a compelling enough storyline, especially with the Islanders facing what amounts to a must-win scenario down two games to none.

But it’s also the embodiment of a philosophy that has served as a thread throughout the most successful period for the Islanders since the dynasty years: No tanking allowed.

It’s a little ironic the Islanders’ opportunity to play postseason games at UBS Arena was made possible by a semi-miraculous gift they received Apr. 11, when the embrace-the-tank Blackhawks upset the Penguins 5-2 to put the Islanders — who’d lost control of their playoff fate by losing to the lottery-bound Capitals 5-2 just 24 hours earlier — in a win-and-in position the next night against the Canadiens, whom they beat 4-2 on Apr. 12.

The Blackhawks accidentally winning a game was a reminder of how often the Islanders have been presented the opportunity to get into the tanking position. The 2016-17 team was 17-17-8, in last place in the Eastern Conference and seven points out of a playoff spot when Garth Snow fired Jack Capuano, who was not only his former college teammate at Maine but also the longest-tenured Islanders coach since Al Arbour. The Islanders went 24-12-4 under Doug Weight and missed the playoffs by a point.

A total rebuild seemed on the horizon when the 2017-18 team finished 17 points out of a playoff spot and John Tavares departed as a free agent for his hometown Maple Leafs. But Scott Malkin hired Lou Lamoriello, who in turn hired Barry Trotz fresh off a Stanley Cup with the Capitals, and the Islanders, with only a handful of depth additions, racked up 103 points, their most since the 1983-84 season.

Lamoriello made it clear he believed a disappointing 2021-22 campaign — when the Islanders finished with 84 points, 16 out of a wild card spot — was a byproduct of an unprecedented set of circumstances and not a sign the Islanders’ core was aging out.

Yet the Islanders looked like a past-its-prime team upon opening January with 11 losses in 13 games (2-8-3) and falling six points out of a playoff spot on Jan. 26. But Lamoriello dealt Anthony Beauvillier, one of the Islanders’ few 20-something core players, and a first-round 2023 pick to the Canucks for Bo Horvat on Jan. 30. Lamoriello, who won’t draft in the first round for the fourth straight year, then signed Horvat to an eight-year extension before he made his Islanders debut.

“I think that’s maybe part of the reason why this one feels good,” leading scorer Brock Nelson said following the win over the Canadiens. “I know we weren’t in a great position in January. But I don’t think there was any quit from players or staff, management or fanbase to count us out.”

Such a sentiment seems quaint in the era of the tank. Six NHL teams have finished with 70 points or fewer in each of the last two seasons. Just one, the Senators, did so in 2018-19, the season prior to the pandemic.

Four Major League Baseball teams have finished with at least 100 losses in the last two seasons and seven teams are on a 100-loss pace through three weeks this season, when the bound-for-Las-Vegas Athletics might make the 120-loss 1962 Mets and 2003 Tigers look like they were World Series contenders.

The Islanders finished emptying their tank to avoid the tank days after the NBA’s Mavericks — weeks removed from going all-in by acquiring Kyrie Irving, which, to be fair, was a terrible idea — flat-out quit by benching or limiting the minutes of Irving and Luka Doncic over the final two games, when the Mavericks still had an outside chance at qualifying for the play-in tournament and avoiding the lottery.

Perhaps the Mavericks — whose first-round pick is the property of the Knicks, per the Kristaps Porzingis trade, unless Dallas drafts in the top 10 — will actually hit on their three percent chance of winning the lottery and greatly improve their chances of making the NBA Finals later in the 2020s by drafting Victor Wembanyama. Maybe whomever drafts Connor Bedard will be rewarded with a Stanley Cup in the next few years. And there might be an Astros-type of perennial World Series contender waiting to emerge from the cadre of tankers in Major League Baseball.

But the allure of maybe winning a lottery does nothing to make tanking any easier to watch. And there’s something to be said for going for it with an imperfect team — the Islanders, who have the fewest points of any playoff team, have led the Hurricanes for just 3:01 over the first two games — and chasing a short-term jackpot instead of perpetually seeking one over the longer term.

“Never been on one of those teams, fortunately,” said Islanders left winger Zach Parise, who is in the playoffs for the 14th time in 18 seasons. “Fortunately we have proud people I here that would, I don’t think, ever accept tanking, As a competitor, that’s just not in (your) vocabulary. Fortunately never been in that situation.

“Hope I never will be.”