Barry Trotz says some of his players 'cheated the game' in loss to Rangers
Kieffer Bellows of the Islanders skates against the Sabres at UBS Arena on Dec. 30, 2021. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Islanders coach Barry Trotz generally has been supportive and sympathetic when commenting on his players during what has been a challenging season.
But after Thursday night’s 6-3 loss to the Rangers at UBS Arena, he expressed extreme frustration with the effort he got from some of them.
Asked about what went wrong in a first period that ended with the Rangers ahead, 3-0, Trotz said, “Some guys cheated the game, plain and simple. We had one line that got torn apart. I thought they cheated the game.”
Trotz did not name names, but Mathew Barzal’s line with Zach Parise and Kyle Palmieri was on the ice for the first two Rangers goals.
But there were many breakdowns in a game in which Andrew Copp had a hat trick in the first period, with Artemi Panarin assisting on all three goals.
“It is a game of mistakes, but if you make a mistake, you have to have the urgency and the desire to clean up your own mistakes,” Trotz said. “If you’re going to create some garbage on the ice, then you better clean it up, and we didn’t do a good job.”
Trotz said goaltender Semyon Varlamov was left helpless by his teammates.
“They didn’t have a lot of chances compared to some other games,” he said, “but when we gave them a chance it was pretty Grade-A, and it was pretty catastrophic.”
Notes & quotes: Anthony Beauvillier sat out with an upper body injury and is day-to-day . . . Jean-Gabriel Pageau and coaches Lane Lambert and Jim Hiler missed the game because of COVID-19 protocols. Otto Koivula was an emergency recall . . . The Islanders signed promising prospect William Dufour to a three-year, entry level contract. Dufour, 20, is one of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s top scorers, with 52 goals and 109 points through 61 games for the Saint John Sea Dogs. The forward was a fifth-round draft pick in 2020 . . . D Grant Hutton was placed on waivers. He can be reassigned to Bridgeport if he clears on Friday.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
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