The Islanders are heading into their longest break of the second half with a whole lot to fix.
The shine hasn’t quite worn off Patrick Roy’s arrival after just eight games, but it has become obvious that the Islanders’ problems were big enough that a new voice alone could not instantly fix it.
After a 2-1 shootout loss to Seattle on Tomas Tatar’s game-winner Tuesday, the Islanders’ second straight defeat on home ice, they are barreling into the Stadium Series with their playoff outlook in need of a boost.
Their deficit to the Flyers for third place in the Metropolitan is at seven points and their deficit in the wild-card race is three, pending Detroit’s game in Edmonton late Tuesday.
Those margins are likely to grow over the next four days with the Islanders off until Sunday’s outdoor match against the Rangers at MetLife Stadium while the rest of the league keeps on playing.
That is not a particularly huge deal, since they will all finish with 82 games.
But it does put the onus very much on the Islanders to win the games they have in hand — and then a few more.
Based on what they put forth Tuesday, that may be a tall order.
The Islanders pulled themselves to 1-1 after 40 minutes, but couldn’t come up with enough of a push to earn two points.
Ilya Sorokin kept the score tied throughout the third period, in particular by stopping Alex Wennberg on a grade-A chance at the crease with 11:13 to go off Adam Pelech’s turnover and getting a glove on Jamie Oleksiak’s attempt with a hair under four minutes left.
The breakouts and structure Roy has been trying to build up were not there on Tuesday, with the Islanders reverting back into leaning on Sorokin while hoping they could convert on an offensive chance every now and then.
Sorokin’s 28 saves in regulation did earn the Islanders a point, and they hung on during a four-on-three penalty kill in overtime.
But in the skills competition, Kraken netminder Philipp Grubauer had the better of him, stopping all three shots.
The Kraken took an early lead on Matty Beniers’ goal off the rush, a stoppable shot that beat Sorokin from the far side 5:27 into the game.
Worse, the Islanders came out without the needed energy for a second straight match, and failed to convert a four-minute power play after Andre Burakovsky high-sticked Jean-Gabriel Pageau.
For all the focus on the Islanders’ penalty kill, the power play is now 5-for-33 over the last month.
But the good news for the Islanders is that they finally broke their recent duck at five-on-four at the 14:37 mark of the second period when Kyle Palmieri finished off Mat Barzal’s feed to the crease.
On a night where the Islanders did not appear to have all that much, that was a needed spark. But not enough.
Roy, who likes to cite zone-time stats, will not be pleased to know that Noah Dobson and Alexander Romanov were stuck on the ice for 3:29 and 3:35 early in the second trying to get the puck out of the zone.
Experimenting with Pierre Engvall on the top line did not go as planned, and was abandoned approximately 12 minutes into the night.
And — stop us if you’ve heard this before — Tuesday was made worse by the fact Grubauer was playing his first game since Dec. 9, in conjunction with Seattle having played on Monday in New Jersey.
A situation tailor-made for the Islanders to take advantage, in which they could not do so.
There is still time to turn things around.
But saying that after every loss will not make it come true.
Credit: Source link
