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Lane Lambert sat at the podium sporting a tie. He looked, in a word, tired.
“It’s been a bit of a long day to say the least,” the Islanders’ associate head coach said Saturday afternoon. “Even though we’re in late afternoon here.”
Lambert had just finished filling in for Barry Trotz, who missed the 3-2 overtime victory over the Oilers due to personal reasons. The Islanders were also down two assistants, John Gruden and goaltenders coach Piero Greco.
Lambert, a Trotz assistant for a decade, was thrown into the fire on short notice.
“First of all, the thoughts were with Barry,” Lambert said. “Just wishing him the best and all that. And then from there, we know we have a game to play. To your point, I’ve been with him for a long, long time. So I think that we work well together, we work hand-in-hand. And I kinda knew what he wanted to do and I had some ideas as well. Just went from there.”
Against the Oilers’ star duo of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, the Islanders’ game plan proved effective. They stayed out of the penalty box and within their defensive structure. Despite a rocky second period, they limited the Oilers to just 19 shots — and just one in a dominant third period.
“That was definitely the game plan,” Anthony Beauvillier said. “Stay out of the box, stay disciplined.”
There wasn’t much different behind the bench, Adam Pelech said. Assistant coach Jim Hiller still ran line changes. And at this point, the Islanders are used to not having a full cadre of personnel.
“It’s always tough,” Pelech said, “being down a couple coaches.”
Tough, yes. But nothing they can’t deal with.
“It wasn’t anything that was stressful, so to speak,” Lambert said. “I thought it worked out to be a fairly smooth transition.”
Anthony Beauvillier returned from the COVID-19 list, recording an assist and five shots in 15:24 of ice time.
Oliver Wahlstrom participated in practice Friday after a stint on the COVID-19 list, but was scratched for the game Saturday.
Saturday was the first game all year in which the Islanders did not record any minutes on the penalty kill. They kept out of the box just once last year, in an April 9 loss to the Rangers.
Cole Bardreau, Michael Dal Colle and Grant Hutton were reassigned to AHL Bridgeport.
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