VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Patrick Roy didn't hide how happy he was to see the Islanders escape Edmonton with one point after fighting back into overtime and ultimately losing 4-3 to the Oilers on Tuesday. Ta.
But that stance requires at least tacit admission that the Islanders lost badly to the Oilers, but Roy didn't seem all that concerned when the topic came up. Ta.
“No, I just couldn't move my legs at the end,” he said of the breakout issue that plagued the islanders all night. “Everyone played, I don’t know how many minutes.” [Ryan Pulock] and [Scott Mayfield] I played. Noah [Dobson] I probably played for close to 30 minutes, which is a lot of minutes. But hey, we can pick up points while we're missing a lot of players, so we'll take them. And we're playing good hockey, so that should give us confidence. When we are tired, we are tired. ”
Roy's drumbeat of optimism is nothing new and they are entirely justified in being happy with the points they picked up on Tuesday night.
But with a dangerous 15-2 chance margin at 5-on-5, and the Oilers looking much harder to get to the puck than the Islanders all night, it's worth raising some eyebrows even with the concession. There may be.
“I don't know. I didn't feel completely behind,” Purok told the Post. “We thought we had a lot of what we had. There was going to come a moment where we had to find a way to win puck battles and take it more seriously.”
To be fair, Tuesday night's ice tilt looks more like a blip than a trend, but the Islanders, whose expected goals far exceeded their actual performance through the first 10 games of the season, are now He has played four games in a row. Games where Natural Stat Trick's expected goal percentage is below 50%.
It's probably no coincidence that a spate of injuries to the defense has turned things around, and Roy needs to spend more time helping the Islanders survive, rather than continuing to play until he's healthy. mentioned the fact.
Still, Tuesday night took the situation to an extreme that they probably wouldn't be able to survive as it is.
“It was nice to get some points and get something out of it,” Kyle MacLean said. “Overall, I think we need to play a better game for 60 minutes to get the two points.”
It's too early to consider a playoff tiebreaker, but the Islanders are already taking their toll by going to overtime so often.
They entered Wednesday tied for points for the last wild-card spot in the East, but tied for last in the entire NHL in regulation wins, with just three wins in their first tiebreaker.
The Islanders did not practice in Vancouver on Wednesday.
