Islanders continue to be plagued by late giveaways

SAN JOSE, California — There was no rehashing Thursday of what went down the night before in Los Angeles.

Why bother? The Islanders know where they sit, still in last place in the Eastern Conference. They know all about the late-game mistakes and misfortune that cost them yet again on Wednesday night. It was the seventh time in 19 games this season that the Islanders allowed a game-tying or game-deciding goal in the last three minutes of the third period.

“Whether it’s errors by us, penalties, bad bounces, it doesn’t really matter anymore,” Thomas Hickey said after the Thanksgiving Day practice here ahead of Friday afternoon’s game against the Sharks. “We have to start turning it around. We had to do that a while ago, honestly.”

Dwight King’s goal with 2:53 left snapped a 1-1 tie and started a wild flurry of goals in what became a 4-2 loss to the Kings. If this were a rare occurrence, the Islanders could have offered a rueful laugh over the series of events that led to King’s goal.

First there was a failed clearing attempt at the Islanders’ line with about five minutes to play in a third period that easily had been one of the Isles’ best this season. The Kings’ Jake Muzzin held the puck in by an inch or two, with three Islanders forwards within a few feet of him. Muzzin then whipped a pass through all three and right to Tyler Toffoli alone in front of Jaroslav Halak.

Nick Leddy lifted Toffoli’s stick rather neatly to prevent a good scoring chance, but referee Kyle Rehman saw a hook and sent Leddy to the penalty box. Just as the power play was ending, Hickey and Trevor Lewis got tangled up behind the Islanders’ net and Casey Cizikas’ stick got caught as Lewis and Hickey tumbled to the ice.

That left Kings defenseman Derek Forbort with loads of time and room to get off a wrist shot from the point that Lewis deflected with his stick and King deflected with his left foot past Halak, a double-deflection goal that looked like a Price Is Right “plinko” game-winner.

“We’ve just got to kill a penalty, get that swagger back on the PK we had all last year,” Jack Capuano said.

King’s goal technically was not a power-play goal, coming one second after Leddy’s minor expired, but it still was a five-on-four situation. “Special teams is a big part of why we are where we are,” Capuano said.

Wednesday night’s regulation defeat made it four games in which the Isles were tied with three minutes to go and came away empty-handed: Oct. 18 against the Sharks, Oct. 26 against the Canadiens and Oct. 27 in Pittsburgh. Add in three tying goals in the final minute of regulation (Oct. 16 against the Ducks, Nov. 3 against the Flyers and Nov. 12 in Sunrise against the Panthers) and Isles players could drive themselves mad calculating the points lost and where they’d be in the standings.

“We have to get the bounces going our way, be the team that’s pressing for the go-ahead goal and get the two points when they’re up for grabs,” Hickey said. “It doesn’t matter what’s happened to this point; we need to change it now.”