Wednesday night's stake was properly laid out by Hudson Fassing after the islanders finished their morning skates.
“For a while we've been telling ourselves, “Well, yes, we're officially in this now.”
Yes, they are, and on Wednesday, the islanders may have finally raided their much-anticipated symbolic marker in this playoff race.
There are a lot of islanders here.
But the aftermath of Wednesday's game, the 5-2 loss to the Canucks felt like many other times this year when they came out looking down on it.
“We can play better,” Max Tseplakov said. “Today is not our day.”
The homestand, which began with a vibe that won last Thursday, ended with a three-game winning streak in three games led by the islanders, with Ilya Sorokin allowing four goals on 19 shots, making the islanders' power play look terrible all season.
So the islanders just didn't just miss the spiritual boost they'd have borne by seeing themselves at playoff spots for the first time since November 19th.
They stare at the barrels of successive barrels of tough weekends in Tampa and Carolina, and they need to regain momentum.
Relatively speaking, it helps that every other team in Chase is experiencing it now.
The islanders are not judged against the Almighty, but against Montreal, the Rangers, Columbus and Detroit.
Earlier in the season, Wednesday's loss would have easily waved.
The islanders played well on long stretches in the first two periods of the game, encountering a red-hot Thatcher Demco in the Vancouver net and were unable to regain momentum after the Canucks rolled things up.
Certainly, that was more or less a message from Director Patrick Roy.
“We had a chance, but we couldn't stand it, they did,” Roy said. “That was the difference after the second season, and I feel the third was the same thing. …I thought it was a fierce battle game where neither team was very much.”
That's not wrong. This is the only game 71 of the season and if you meet a hot goalkeeper, no one cares.
More than that, Demco not only plays, but the Islanders can look to themselves with failing to find the right play in many oddman rushes in this one, and losing the game after a second lead of 2-1.
In his first game at UBS since being included in Bo Horvat's January 2023 deal, Aatu Raty moved things for Vancouver by tying a shot of Marcus Pettersson into the two at the second 13:59 past Ilya Sorokin.
The islanders concentrated in 23 seconds during the period and expired. Derek saw the rush and the defensive man quickly moved the Canucks to 3-2 to third place.
That was one that Sorokin should have stopped.
Teddy Bruger's appearance from the circle on the left came third at just 1:03. And after coming in to extend the Vancouver lead to 4-2, Roy gave the goalkeeper a hook. By then, urgency had almost left the islanders.
“He didn't change him because he had a bad game. He changed him because it's good to change the momentum of the game,” Roy said. “I was hoping it would make a spark.”
“Maybe I wasn't perfect, [the last two goals were] Sorokin told the post. But sometimes things don't work. ”
There was a chance that I might return to this game. In other words, two power plays were played in the third season.
However, the Islander Power Play has experienced a scary spell for now, even by the 32nd place group 5-4, 32nd place in the league, and can barely put together zone entries.
Shortly after the islanders' last failed power play, Kiefer Sherwood's empty netter sealed the result 5-2. The opportunity was lost. Islanders go to Florida.
