If the Islanders don’t watch out, they are going to have a playoff race on their hands.
Not a race for seeding or for the division, as they have been embroiled in for the last couple of months. That is, a race for a spot in the postseason tournament at all.
Such is the state of play following Saturday’s 5-0 loss to the Sabres in which the Islanders were utterly embarrassed on home ice, their power play dysfunctional and their top line benched for the entire third period.
The loss means that, if the Flyers beat the Islanders on Monday night in Philadelphia, they will move ahead of New York for third in the Metropolitan Division on points percentage, with the loser below the playoff cutline entirely.
The schedule has been unforgiving to the Islanders, but nevertheless, this is not the position they imagined themselves in a few weeks ago.
It is, though, exactly what they deserve at the moment.
Saturday’s game was not so much one that could be pinned on the usual first game back from a long road trip excuse.
Rather, the Islanders could not take advantage of their chances, particularly on the power play, continued to make mistakes at the game’s decisive moments and faded completely in the third period.
The moments in which they could have seized hold of this one were myriad.
There was Tony DeAngelo’s shot off the rush late in the first period that Alex Lyon stretched over to make a great save on; there was Max Shabanov’s backhand in front; there were a trio of shorthanded rushes all on the same Buffalo power play; there were two Islander power plays that amounted to nothing at all; there was a Casey Cizikas goal wiped off for interference and a Mat Barzal goal that came right after the first period buzzer.
That was all just in the first 40 minutes, after which the Islanders trailed 2-0, having committed the twin cardinal sins of coughing up goals in the first and last 35 seconds of the second period, with Jason Zucker and Tage Thompson scoring.
The latter, in which Barzal’s line with Anders Lee and Anthony Duclair was caught failing to track back on a three-on-two rush, prompted Patrick Roy to bench the entire line.
That didn’t stop his team from giving up a goal in the first 30 seconds of the third period to boot. Shabanov, who had a rough day overall, was beaten to the puck on the wall by Tage Thompson and Tony DeAngelo lost a netfront battle to Zucker, who promptly made it 3-0.
With their top line nailed to the bench and the air let completely out of the building, there was no semblance of a rally before Rasmus Dahlin and Alex Tuch scored, the former into an empty net, to extend the lead to 5-0.
The power play, whose units were changed up to try and achieve equilibrium following Bo Horvat’s return, is worth dwelling on. Patrick Roy did succeed in creating two equal units: they were just both equally bad.
Anthony Duclair and Cal Ritchie, who had combined for the Islanders’ last three power play goals, were no longer on the same unit. Neither were Matthew Schaefer and Barzal. The result was two units that could hardly complete one zone entry between them.
Horvat, in his first game back from a lower-body injury, did not seem to be missing much of a step. Ditto Isaiah George in his season debut for the Isles following a call-up in place of Ryan Pulock, though his partner, Adam Boqvist, had a nightmare performance.
In that regard, he was not alone.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
