This first game of a seven-game homestand felt more like the first day back from vacation for the Islanders, and not in a good way.
In a lot of ways, that’s what the three-game road trip preceding Tuesday — all wins — was.
A break from what the rest of a largely disappointing season has been.
The Islanders were, out of nowhere, going into the buildings of playoff teams and winning.
Back in their own backyard, against an Eastern Conference opponent in what amounted to a four-point game in the chase for the second wild-card spot, this looked more like the product the Islanders have put out for most of the season and the Senators came away 2-0 victors.
The Islanders carried over the physicality and hard defense that sustained them out West.
But offensively, they struggled as much as ever, failing to break the puck out for much of the night and thus, failing to do much of anything against a goalie in Leevi Merilainen who started just his ninth-ever NHL game.
The result, after a would-be Adam Gaudette goal was waved off a few minutes into the night following Patrick Roy’s successful goalie interference challenge, was a game of attrition, in which every inch of ice was fought over.
That’s the sort of match in which the Islanders can sometimes thrive, but not as often as in past years, and not Tuesday.
The Islanders lost ground fast, and found themselves playing much of the game in their own zone before they knew it.
Without Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Ilya Sorokin, both out with illness, the Islanders were shorthanded.
But this wasn’t about their injuries or the bug going around the locker room, which forced Marc Gatcomb into an NHL debut via emergency call-up and Marcus Hogberg into a second straight start in the crease.
The top line, which drove play all night long two nights earlier in Utah, was bottled up all night playing largely against Brady Tkachuk’s line for the Senators.
That only put Anders Lee, Brock Nelson and Mathew Barzal in the same group as the rest of the Islanders, who couldn’t get anything going no matter who was on the ice.
It didn’t help matters that the power play continued marching toward the abyss, getting nothing on its lone opportunity to extend a scoreless streak to 25 straight chances dating back well over a month.
Ottawa held a 1-0 lead after 40 minutes courtesy of a Gaudette tip-in 8:42 into the second — avenging the earlier no-goal — and the question was whether the Islanders would show the same resilience they had in Salt Lake City.
The answer, resoundingly, was no.
Outside of Hogberg, who continued to make a good case for himself in the net, the Islanders played the third with less tenacity than they did the first or second.
Any sort of offensive traction beyond the odd chance here or there never came.
Rather, they spent more time in their own zone and depended on the goalie to keep the game close, failing to even record a high-danger chance over the final 20 minutes.
That Hogberg did — Ottawa’s second goal came via Artem Zub’s slap shot into an empty net — so at least there was one positive from the night.
This team, though, is long past the point where silver linings matter, especially against a Senators club which is competing for the same wild-card spot as them.
Vacation’s over for the Islanders. It’s back to the long, hard winter of the East — and they’re going to need more than this to survive it.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
