Stop me if you've heard this story before, but the Islanders were frustrated by a call late in Monday's game.
But it was Ben Chiarot's call to get in on Anders Lee at 16:10 of the game that ended up being a 4-2 loss to the Red Wings at UBS Arena.
The Islanders were angry at the fact that the call wasn't made until Lee got up and fought Chiarot and incurred a double minor for disorderly conduct.
So it would have been a power play for the Islanders if the call had been made sooner, but instead the four-minute penalties canceled each other out and Chiarot picked up the rough call in addition to the boarding, resulting in two penalties. ended up canceling each other out.
“I think once they realized they could give Anders the same thing, they decided to give it to him as well,” Brock Nelson said. “That's the reality. It's out of our control, so we have to go out and play.”
Coach Patrick Roy echoed similar sentiments, adding that Chiarot's hit nearly matched Grant Hutton's hit from Tyler Motte late in the second period, prompting the whistle to blow.
“Personally, we should have made the power play at the end,” Roy said. “I don't think there was much of a difference between the game called against Hatton and that game. In fact, I think this was probably worse than Hatton. [one]”
Roy said he would consider changes to the power play unit after the Islanders went 0-for-3 on the man advantage Monday. The club has scored just two power-play goals in its past nine games and is a dismal 8-of-63 (12.69 percent) this season.
“We want to use our line and then have fresh players,” Roy said, referring to the current composition of the unit, which has three-fifths each on the top line and second line. “…Sometimes you want to bring in fresh players and that's a luxury we have when we do that. But there's certainly a possibility that we'll look at our line.”
Alexander Romanov, who has been plagued by upper-body injuries, suffered a sudden scratch on Monday night and has been on the team's daily call-in due to illness. Scott Mayfield moved to the top pair with Noah Dobson, and Hutton returned to the lineup to play on the third pair with Dennis Cholowski.
The Islanders said Anthony Duclair (groin doubt) and Adam Pelech (jaw) have both started skating on their own. Duclair is well within the original four-to-six week schedule for his return.
