NHL
RALEIGH, N.C. — Scott Mayfield was still screaming at the refs after the puck went in the net.
Jesper Fast had scored the overtime winner to give the Hurricanes a 2-0 lead in the series, but Mayfield wanted an explanation.
According to Islanders coach Lane Lambert, it didn’t sound like the Islanders got one.
Right before Fast ended Wednesday’s game with a wrist shot wired past Ilya Sorokin, Carolina’s Jordan Martinook caught Mayfield up high with what looked to be a clear high stick.
In a game where the Hurricanes had a 4-1 advantage on penalty calls, including two double-minors — the lone penalty they took nullifying two minutes of one of the four-minute calls instead of giving the Islanders a power play — the referees kept the whistles in their pockets.
Mayfield immediately started appealing for a call, diverting his attention from the game.
And then Fast scored.
“I thought they probably deserved a penalty at some point throughout that hockey game tonight,” Matt Martin said in a quiet postgame locker room. “I don’t know about you. I don’t know what the penalties ended up. It is what it is.”
Mayfield did not speak to reporters after the game, with the Islanders saying he was getting medical attention, and the team avoided direct criticism of the officiating.
But there was little secret about their feelings.
“What’d you think?” Martin said, asked about the no-call on Mayfield.
“I didn’t see it,” Noah Dobson said. “Obviously there was some frustration there.”
“Scotty said he got high-sticked,” Brock Nelson said. “I just saw the aftermath. I didn’t see a replay. I guess [they] missed it. They didn’t really want to have a discussion about it, either.”
Lambert, barely hiding his anger, was relegated to one-word answers.
Asked whether the no-call was bothersome, he said: “Yeah,” later adding that the Islanders will likely ask for an explanation from the league.
“I just saw a snippet of it,” he said, regarding Mayfield focusing his attention on the referees instead of the action at hand. “So clearly he had some issues and was trying to recover.”
Whatever the situation with the officiating is, the Islanders are staring at a 2-0 hole in a series in which they were the underdogs to begin with, and just lost a game in which they held a third-period lead.
And, after taking four penalties and allowing two power-play goals in Game 1, they took four more in Game 2, spending 9:18 total on the penalty kill and giving up an own-goal at five-on-four.
“Tough that way, the way it kinda played out,” Nelson said. “Never seen an argument with the ref be won.”
Stefan Noesen, who was credited with the goal for Carolina on Sebastian Aho’s own-goal, was also the only Hurricanes forward in the game who finished without a shot on net.
Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said that forward Teuvo Teravainen broke his hand and will need surgery.
Power Plays
Three stars
1. Jesper Fast
Fast scored the game-winner in overtime, taking the wind out of the Islanders’ sails when they easily could have stolen away home ice. That could easily be the moment that turns the series.
2. Jaccob Slavin
Both top pair defenders for Carolina gave the Islanders trouble, but we’ll give the nod here to Slavin for his early assist to Paul Stastny and the tying goal in the third — which took the air out of the Islanders in a moment where the game could have gone the other way.
3. Antti Raanta
Raanta was not perfect on Wednesday, but has more than done what’s necessary to deliver two wins for Carolina, and has kept himself in the conversation to start Game 3 on Long Island.
Key moment
Stefan Noesen’s goal — or Sebastian Aho’s own goal, if you prefer — was an easily preventable error, the kind that Ilya Sorokin almost never makes. And without it, the Islanders might just have gone back to New York with home-ice advantage.
Quote of the night
“Other than [during] a four-minute kill, we didn’t get a call all night.”
— Matt Martin
Load more…
{{#isDisplay}}
{{/isDisplay}}{{#isAniviewVideo}}
{{/isAniviewVideo}}{{#isSRVideo}}
{{/isSRVideo}}
