'Stay in the Fight'

"It's not going to be all roses."

The New York Islanders are facing a possible elimination in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final as the Tampa Bay Lightning extended their series lead 3-1.
But it's not over yet.
Throughout the entirety of this wildly unique and taxing postseason run, the Islanders haven't strayed from the task at hand to ever once stop and smell the roses, nor have they put on rose-colored glasses even when advancing to their first Eastern Conference Final in 27 years - because that's not who they are. They're a group who prides themselves on their 'no quit' mentality, embraces the onerous waves of adversity, who bets on themselves and the guy beside them and who have sacrificed far too much to leave the Edmonton bubble without causing some commotion.
"I know this group and this group has invested too much to not give their best effort on Tuesday," Head Coach Barry Trotz said. "We've got one life left. We're going to try to see if we can keep going here. We've got to earn the right to keep playing."

The Islanders, arguably more than anyone, know how physically and mentally demanding it is to win in this format. They're the only team remaining who has essentially battled through three prior rounds in order to reach this point in the conference finals. En route, they've shaken off three-goal deficits as if it were a slight inconvenience rather than anything of realistic detriment. They've shown resilience when bombarded with a landslide of adversity and instead of throwing in the towel, they grabbed a shovel and they got to work.
In their last series against the Philadelphia Flyers, they faced elimination themselves as the Flyers forced a Game 7 after the Isles initial 3-1 series lead. They're fully aware that to keep their season alive, they'll have to channel the same resolve that powered them to a 4-0 win in Game 7.
"You have an opportunity to pull yourself right back into this thing just like we did after being down 2-0 [in the series]," Anders Lee said. "Look, we're still alive here. There's no sense of doubt or anything like that. To get to where we want to go, it's not going to be easy, it's not going to be all roses. You're not going to come out of these things just by wanting it. You've got to go out and do it. As a team and as a group, there's nothing better than doing it with the guy sitting next to you."
An incessant constant that has motivated the Isles throughout this peculiar journey of 2020 has been their belief and commitment as a team. Their mindset is focused on the benefit of the group and not on that of the individual. The times they've been counted out, they've leveraged the trust they have in one another to prove the doubters wrong.
Even with their season on the line, they've approached being down for the first time in a series with a sense of belief and optimism towards the ability of the collective whole.
"As a competitor, you want to stay in the fight," Mathew Barzal said. "That's a good thing about this group is we've got a lot of guys that compete and a lot of guys that want it bad. We're not going to go away lightly here. Personally, this is exactly where I want to be and where we want to be - maybe not down 3-1 - but the Eastern Conference Finals, what an opportunity for our group. We're not going to go down lightly. We're going to come out swinging."

It won't be easy and the Islanders know that. They have a hefty challenge in front of them if they want to make it out of this series and are planning to take it one shift, period and game at a time. But they haven't even considered packing up their bags yet, they still have a lot of hockey left to play and a lot of heart left to give.
Game 5 will be the ultimate test.
"If you think of it as three games, it may seem like a lot," Trotz said. "But if you think of it like 'Hey, let's just win a game tomorrow,' it doesn't seem as big. That's why that mentality has to be there. Let's win the first period and go from there. If you look at anything that gets done - it doesn't matter what you're building - you have to start with the micro stuff and then the macro stuff comes after that. Right now, it's worrying about tomorrow's game. If we get tomorrow's game it's 3-2. Who knows how it plays out after that, but you've got to get to that 3-2."