The collapse is nearly complete.
The Islanders’ playoff odds hit life support on Saturday as they lost 3-0 at home to the Senators, putting the second wild-card spot officially out of reach and meaning they could be officially eliminated as soon as Sunday.
The only path remaining to the playoffs is to overtake the Flyers for third in the Metro, but a Philadelphia win on Saturday night in Winnipeg would put the Isles three points back with two games remaining for each team.
Combine that with an Islanders loss on Sunday to the Canadiens, and you can stick a fork in the season.
While the Islanders had no choice but to be realistic about their chances of pulling off a miracle after firing Patrick Roy and hiring Pete DeBoer with four games left in the season, they will feel this bitterly.
The urgency that had been missing over the last few weeks under Roy was there on Saturday. This loss was a matter of execution — on the power play and in the offensive zone — as the Islanders let a solid performance go to waste.
Start with the power play, because it has been an issue all season and because it was the central issue on Saturday. The Islanders were not only an abysmal 0-for-5, but repeatedly killed their own momentum at five-on-four.
For good measure, they let up a shorthanded goal to Ridley Greig, who got up ice after Tony DeAngelo could not get to JG Pageau’s drop pass at the top of the zone, and finished Michael Amadio’s feed for a 1-0 lead at 13:06 of the first.
Ottawa carried that lead into the third period as the Islanders, again and again, fumbled chances and did not so much as look threatening on the power play.
Their fifth chance of the game at five-on-four came at 7:17 of the third and may have been their worst. The Islanders struggled to enter the zone and looked hesitant to shoot when they did. It was a lack of confidence personified.
In 10 minutes total on the power play, the Islanders recorded just three shots.
And for good measure, Ottawa stuck a fork in them on its own five-on-three power play.
With the Islanders already killing off Carson Soucy’s penalty, Ryan Pulock took down Tim Stutzle to hand the Senators 1:27 at five-on-three. Jake Sanderson cleaned up the garbage on Dylan Cozens’ rebound to double the lead.
On a day where the Islanders were highly challenged for scoring, that was fatal.
Michael Amadio tacked on an empty-netter to seal it with 2:31 to go.
During training camp, the common refrain was that if the Islanders had been just average on the playoffs a year ago, they would have made the playoffs. They achieved average on the penalty kill, but have been entirely unable to do so on the power play, and it appears set to make the difference again.
In fairness, there were five-on-five issues too.
The Islanders were up ice for much of a match that was played with playoff-like physicality from the moment Anders Lee and Brady Tkachuk dropped gloves off the opening faceoff. They finished every check, and Kyle MacLean came flying after Nikolas Matinpalo for good measure when the Finn got in a shoving match with Matthew Schaefer early on.
They could not, though, penetrate a note-perfect Ottawa defensive structure. The Senators did a terrific job keeping the Islanders to the outside and out of the danger areas all game long. Offensive-zone cycles were rendered useless, and there were no odd-man rushes to speak of.
It made for a game in which the Islanders had little choice but to convert their power-play chances to win.
This team has never found a way to win games with that recipe.
And now their season may end Tuesday because of it.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
