ST. LOUIS — The 2023-24 Islanders have been nothing short of strange, but here comes another mysterious chapter of the season.
The Islanders played mostly OK hockey for 59 minutes and 28 seconds on Tuesday, but found a way to lose 4-0 to the Blues thanks to a 32-second spurt that turned into a nightmare.
“We’re going to have to stop shooting with our feet every night,” coach Patrick Roy said. “We played well enough to win tonight. But we made a critical mistake at the wrong time.”
Just when it looked like the Islanders were going to stop Kyle McClain’s slashing penalty in the second period, Brandon Saad broke free at the backdoor after a failed clearance attempt by the Islanders, and Oskar Sun He took a pass from Doqvist and took a 1-0 lead.
Seven seconds later, after the Islanders won the ensuing faceoff, he failed to corral the puck, lost track of his man in the defensive zone, and allowed Pavel Buchnevich to score.
Roy called a timeout 25 seconds later, but before he even had time for a bathroom break, he freed Buchnevich again to make it 3-0.
“That clearance on the penalty spot was the difference in that game for me,” Roy said.
It was the fastest three points scored in Blues history and the fastest three conceded in Islanders history. The visitors ended the second period outscoring the Blues 20-9 in 20 minutes, but at the same time they lost control of the game. This statistic feels far more representative of the season than a single game period.
“Coach called a timeout. We have to regroup,” Ryan Purock said. “We let it happen again. It’s just unacceptable.”
There was no turnaround for a team where mental fragility was a theme on the night, but Roy moved Mathew Barzal to the third line and Oliver Wahlstrom held the first line spot for the rest of the game, making the game interesting. I kept it. Roy also changed up his defensive pairings, with Adam Pelech skating with Noah Dobson and Alexander Romanov teaming up with Purok.
Buchnevich completed his hat trick after Roy pulled Semyon Varlamov 4-on-4 and scored into an empty net with just over 10 minutes left in the game to end the Islanders’ misery.
Jordan Binnington also had a shutout, stopping all 38 shots he saw on a night where the Islanders’ power play was an abysmal 0-for-5.
Tampa’s loss and Red Wings’ win left the Islanders with a five-point lead in playoff contention, but they still have two games left at the Lightning and a key home game against the Islanders on Saturday. I’m refraining.
However, for a team that has won consecutive games just once since December, five points feels like a pretty big difference.
And despite all the strange happenings this season, most of those games have something in common. That means the Islanders are losing.
Tuesday’s overtime victory over the Penguins may have been the start of something.
But instead, Thursday looked like the same Islanders we’ve seen since October. It’s enough to make you wonder how you lost.
