This is what January looks like after the season has passed.
Forget the seasons. This may look like seeing an entire era of the franchise come to an end.
Just a week ago, Lou Lamoriello was optimistic about his team's playoff chances. Now, after losing 5-3 at home to the Flyers on Thursday, the Islanders are now eight points out of the final playoff spot in the East and just two points behind the last-place Sabers.
Technically they still have a chance, but at the end of the day, mathematically no one is eliminated after 44 games. But does this look like a playoff team to you?
At this point, it looks a lot like a situation where it's simply impossible to keep the core intact by the trade deadline unless it hits the full $180 mark in the coming weeks. The Islanders hope this group can still contend for the Stanley Cup, but right now, winning the draft lottery is a bigger threat than winning a championship. Like it or not, that's an objective fact.
“If you want everyone to stay, you've got to start winning hockey games, right?” Bo Horvat articulated the situation facing the Islanders with 50 days left until the trade deadline. “At the end of the day, it’s up to us to do what we can here on the ice and in the room to keep this team together and try to make the playoffs.”
After losing the opener of this homestand on Tuesday, coach Patrick Roy questioned his team's hunger. When asked after the game if the Islanders had the hunger they needed throughout the 60 minutes, the head coach flatly answered “no.”
“We need more consistency and a sense of urgency from start to finish,” Roy said after saying he liked his team's fightback in the third period. “There should be no holes in our game.”
The Islanders showed some initiative on Thursday and took control from the start when Max Tsyplakov took a hard but legal hit on Ryan Poehling that led to the team's first power-play goal in more than a month. It looked like a crab.
However, the Islanders' hunger appeared to be completely gone as they not only lost control in a brutal second period, but also conceded three consecutive goals, all through their own fault. .
Anthony Duclair threw a blind pass off the wall into the middle of the ice, and after some poor play in front of his own net, Sean Couturier tucked the puck in to tie the score at 1-all at 5:15.
Then, with the Isles on the power play, the previous special teams goal was returned immediately after, allowing a short-handed rush and Noah Dobson failing to cover Garnet Hathaway, giving the Flyers a 2-1 lead. .
Minutes later, the Islanders were even, with another odd-man rush after Adam Pelech was caught out of position and Morgan Frost made it 3-1.
“I don’t think we managed the puck very well,” Roy said. “If you look at all the opportunities we have, most of them come from turnovers. We gave them the odd rush, either from breakouts or at the blue line. We've got to do a better job. You can't win in this league by turning the puck over too many times.”
There were some close moments in the third period. Matt Barzal scored in the first 30 seconds, and Anders Lee scored a late power-play goal to make it 6-4, both of which briefly cut the lead to one point. However, the Islanders were unable to maintain momentum on either occasion, and five minutes after Barzal's goal, Ilya Sorokin missed the spot on Cam York's goal, just as it looked like the Islanders were going to force overtime. That's when Noah Cates scored a goal into an empty net.
After winning three straight West Division games, this seven-game homestand was the moment the Islanders had to solidify their status as championship favorites. In fact, they are doing the opposite.
“You always want to be positive, but at the end of the day we know where we are in the standings,” Horvat said. “If we don't win games, we can't move up the rankings.”
This team can channel John Belushi to “Animal House” all they want and say nothing is done. But the Islanders are on record and are where the standings say they are.
They are currently 17-20-7, the 15th-best team in the 16-team Eastern Conference, and nine points away from the playoff cut line.
Now, their playoff chances are dwindling towards zero in January, and after four years of clinging to this core without winning a playoff series, it's time for the Islanders to face the consequences. It seems certain that it was.
