SUNRISE, Fla. — It’s only six games into the season, but already the Islanders are facing real adversity.
As the Islanders head home from Florida, coach Lane Lambert and his team are staring down a three-game losing streak following a winless trip that ended with a 3-2 defeat to the Panthers on Sunday. Unlike their loss to the Lightning a night earlier, this one was not as competitive as the score suggests.
As Lambert juggled his lines, pairings and power-play units, the Islanders struggled to put together an offensive attack on backup Florida netminder Spencer Knight at five-on-five. Two games after putting 17 shots on Mackenzie Blackwood in a blowout loss to the Devils at home, they forced Knight into just 23 saves.
With the third period came a short-lived comeback effort as Anders Lee pulled the Islanders to within a goal with a five-on-three tally at 9:07. But as with the rest of the game, the Isles’ five-on-five effort prevented them from following up on that.
Anton Lundell scored less than a minute into the match, stripping Adam Pelech behind the net and then scoring from a tight angle past Semyon Varlamov. When Lambert tried to juggle the lines, something he did with success in a win over the Sharks last week, Eetu Luostarinen scored for the Panthers on the first shift that Anders Lee, Mathew Barzal and Oliver Wahlstrom were together, with Lundell assisting.
The second period did come with the team’s first power-play goal since opening night, as Lee tipped Barzal’s shot past Knight to get it back to 2-1. At even strength, though, the Islanders struggled to compete on Sunday.
Florida possessed the puck for three minutes straight in the offensive zone at the start of the second, and though the Panthers’ didn’t manage to score, that was the way in which this game was played at five-on-five: almost entirely in the Islanders’ own end.
The Islanders did not record their first high-danger chance at even strength until over six minutes into the third period. They were knocked off pucks, beaten below the hashes, beaten on the forecheck and beaten on the walls for most of the night. The score was closer, and the opposition was better, but for long stretches this bore an alarming resemblance to Thursday’s effort against the Devils.
Ryan Lomberg made it 3-1, Florida, at 2:54 of the third with a wrist shot past Varlamov. The Islanders would again pull within one after Lee’s second goal, but even then, a comeback felt like a steep ask given how they played at five-on-five. Briefly, it looked as though Lee had tied it before the game went back to even strength, but the would-be goal was waved off, as the puck had gone out of play.
Now, as they come back home to face the Rangers on Wednesday, the Islanders are 2-4. Their next two games after the Blueshirts are at Carolina and home against Colorado. It is early in the season, but that is not a good position to be in. Not at all.
After a summer in which the coaching change was the only major change the Islanders made, there is not much room for error if they are to break back into the Eastern Conference playoff picture. Though Alexander Romanov has played well, particularly on the penalty kill, the lack of offensive acquisitions has already begun to show up.
A year after scoring once in his first 29 games, Kyle Palmieri has yet to find the scoresheet through the first six matches. Josh Bailey, who was back in the lineup after being made a healthy scratch on Saturday less than a week off from presumably playing his 1,000th game with the club, has not yet recorded a point. Not one of the Islanders’ centers — Mathew Barzal, Brock Nelson, Jean-Gabriel Pageau or Casey Cizikas — has scored a goal. Only three forwards have scored more than once and one of them, Anthony Beauvillier, was in the press box during Sunday’s game.
General manager Lou Lamoriello showed a lot of faith in a sticking by a group that had made two straight Eastern Conference Finals before slumping last season. It is fast becoming imperative that they start showing that he was right.
Source: New York Post
