Ryan Pulock chose his words carefully when asked if the Islanders are where they need to be mentally after Thursday night’s 4-0 loss to the Blues in St. Louis.
“Well, I think that’s something you can do better,” he said. “I think each individual has to cherish the moment. There are going to be little moments in every game. I think it’s those little things that are hurting us right now.
“And yes, it’s frustrating. We want to do better. But we have to find a way to lock it down when it matters, but we don’t I have not.”
The Islanders’ tendency to spiral out of control when faced with adversity was evident in their three-goal loss in 32 seconds against St. Louis and in many close losses this season.
These allow the team to get back into the game with surprising frequency, the most recent example being seen in Tuesday’s eventual win at Pittsburgh.
They are penalized and look destined to concede.
They haven’t scored an empty-net goal this season, which is a big factor in the number of overtime games.
A series of inexplicable mistakes could mean the difference between being above or below the playoff cut line for the Islanders, who are five points behind the Lightning heading into Saturday’s crucial four-point game against Tampa in a battle for two wild-card spots. This is due to losing. game.
On Thursday, a missed penalty-kill clearance gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead, but seven seconds later the Islanders broke coverage in the defensive zone and lost 2-0.
Then 25 seconds later the same thing happened and the match was over no matter how you looked at it.
Captain Anders Lee was asked if it was indicative of a mental problem and replied: “I don’t think so.” “I think we turned things around and they made a play through us. No, I don’t think so.”
Mr. Purok wasn’t so sure.
“That’s part of it,” he said. “When you concede a goal or when you score a goal, the next transition is very important. That’s the moment in the game when you have to be patient and do what you have to do. But tonight we didn’t do that.”
Head coach Patrick Roy explained the loss from a puck management perspective, but noted that despite being a veteran team, the Islanders still have some young players on that list, including the 26-year-old He said that included Matthew Barzal. He’s in his eighth year in the league and has talked about learning how to stay in the league when the chips are down, which in itself is a tacit acknowledgment of the Islanders’ mental strength.
“Our job is to stay calm and believe that we can turn any game around,” he said. “We were winning 4-1 against Rangers.” [on Sunday], they didn’t think about it and just kept playing and came back and won the game in overtime. So you need to be able to do these things. I think all we need to do is learn how to play these games, that’s it. ”
The Islanders are a team that not only is struggling to turn things around, but other teams feel like they can do it too.
That trend cost Lane Lambert his job and cost the Islanders a key point against the Rangers this week, which marked the fifth time this season they allowed a multiple-score comeback in the third period. They islanders have assembled them themselves only once.
If they end up missing the playoffs, that will almost certainly be the reason.
“We just need to find a way to stop the bleeding,” Roy said. “For some reason, there was nothing we could do.”
