RALEIGH, N.C. — Within the Jap Convention’s wild-card race, at present being run in three-legged style, the query, ‘Why not us?’ is normally answered by whoever asks briefly order.
Behold this weekend, the Islanders’ reply.
Why not them? Properly, how a couple of energy play that scored in consecutive video games for the primary time all season, but nonetheless allowed an important shorthanded purpose throughout a four-minute double minor on Sunday with the sport tied? Or how in regards to the two poor begins, 24 hours aside, which put them down 3-0 in Tampa and 2-0 in Carolina, respectively? Or the goaltending, which coach Patrick Roy outright mentioned wasn’t adequate after Marcus Hogberg stopped simply 24 of 30 pictures towards the Hurricanes?
After Sunday’s 6-4 defeat to the ‘Canes capped an 0-2 road trip and extended a burgeoning losing streak to five, you could look at the standings, too. The Rangers won Saturday night and the Canadiens won Sunday, so the Islanders’ hole is now three factors to the playoff cutline as they arrive dwelling for 4 of their subsequent 5 video games in determined, determined want of wins.
“Played well but we didn’t find a way to win,” Tony DeAngelo advised The Submit. “It really doesn’t matter if you play like crap or play great. You just gotta find ways to win.”
Like on Saturday, there have been moments and stretches on Sunday the place they appeared like a match for Carolina. They led 3-2 early within the second after Pierre Engvall scored his second purpose of the night, a laser off the push, and all of the momentum was on the Islanders’ backs. As an alternative of placing their foot down, the Islanders let the ‘Canes proper again up.
Max Tsyplakov took a useless penalty for hooking, which Sebastian Aho transformed for the tying purpose, wiring a one-timer previous Hogberg from the proper circle at 8:35 of the interval. Then after a heroic shift from Alexander Romanov, who cleared the puck off the road then took a excessive stick from Jalen Chatfield, the Islanders’ energy play confirmed up because the worst model of itself, letting Seth Jarvis rating on a shorthanded rush throughout a four-minute double minor during which it failed to supply something.
“It’s my fault there,” DeAngelo mentioned. “Just gotta be a little bit tighter instead of pivoting out the other way. It’s a big goal to give up. Kinda changed the game,now we’re chasing again rather than playing even or maybe even taking the lead.”
Kyle Palmieri additionally blamed himself.
“I was trying to chip that one by, [Jaccob] Slavin made a nice play to knock it down,” Palmieri mentioned. “It’s tough when the turnover’s on me.”
The Islanders didn’t play useless within the third, with Anders Lee tying the sport simply 4:05 into the interval, tapping in Bo Horvat’s feed to the crease.
That momentum, nonetheless, proved short-lived when Dmitry Orlov put a shot by way of site visitors and behind Hogberg simply over 5 minutes later.
Jarvis scored his second of the sport to place it away with 2:46 to go within the third.
“Today, maybe we could start with some saves,” Roy mentioned, requested what was lacking from the Islanders’ recreation. “After that, could be decision-making and obviously, if I look at the last goal, we can’t turn over pucks like this and think the puck would not finish in the back of our net.”
Roy was left to laud the Islanders’ resilience whereas acknowledging that they couldn’t do sufficient for the second time in simply over 24 hours.
“We can’t give up three, four goals and expect [to be] winning games. That doesn’t work that way,” he mentioned. “We gotta make sure we can’t give four goals. We gotta do a better job defending.”
Neglect 4 — the Islanders simply gave up 11 in a 30-hour span.
There’s nonetheless sufficient time left within the season, the standings are nonetheless tight sufficient, that the Islanders may conceivably discover their means right into a playoff spot. However at 74 factors by way of 73 video games, uninspiring doesn’t start to cowl it.
In 2021-22, the one season since 2018-19 that they’ve missed the playoffs, the Islanders completed with 84 factors. Attending to even that quantity now doesn’t look assured — it requires 10 factors of their final 9 video games.
Why not them?
“I think the guys are giving me everything they have,” Roy mentioned.
The plain, harsh truth is that it’s not sufficient.
