Islanders unable to erase three-goal deficit, fall to Kings in Los Angeles
Islanders center Casey Cizikas falls while under pressure from Kings center Samuel Helenius during the second period of an NHL hockey game on Thursday in Los Angeles. Credit: AP/Mark J. Terrill
LOS ANGELES — Slump? Or evidence of the need for roster help via a trade?
Perhaps two things can be true at the same time.
“Tonight was shooting ourselves in the foot,” Mathew Barzal said.
The Islanders dropped their second straight to open a four-game road trip, falling to the Kings, 5-3, on Thursday night at Crypto.com Arena. They allowed a total of 10 goals on back-to-back nights and have faced multi-goal deficits in each of the five games since the Olympic break.
It was their sixth straight loss in the building, where they have not won since Oct. 18, 2018.
It again prevented the Islanders (35-23-5) from moving past the Penguins for second place in the Metropolitan Division. Each team has 75 points, but the Penguins have played two fewer games. The fourth-place Blue Jackets, who acquired potential Islanders trade target Conor Garland from the Canucks on Thursday, have won three straight and are three points back, also having played two fewer games.
“We didn’t play north enough in the first [period],” said defenseman Ryan Pulock, who returned to the lineup after a one-game absence for an upper-body issue. “I thought in the second and third we started playing north more. We did a lot of better things. A couple of mistakes and then we’re chasing.”
The NHL trade deadline is Friday at 3 p.m. ET, and it still is unclear whether general manager Mathieu Darche will be able to execute a deal with prices skyrocketing on the market. He would like to add a scoring forward or even a defenseman for depth and has aggressively been working the phone all week.
There’s a chance his pre-deadline deals will remain acquiring defenseman Carson Soucy from the Rangers on Jan. 26 and top-six wing Ondrej Palat from the Devils the next day.
But Palat (Czechia) and fellow Olympian Bo Horvat (Canada) have shown some struggles readjusting to the NHL game after the highs of international competition, and their top line with Barzal again struggled against the Kings in both ends.
“Our penalty kill has got to be a lot better,” said Horvat, who brought the Islanders within 3-1 with three-tenths of a second left in the second period off Jean-Gabriel Pageau’s offensive-zone faceoff win after one second was put back on the clock. “It’s a big kill at the beginning of the third period and it’s on us to get that kill and get our momentum going that way, and we just couldn’t get it done tonight.”
Palat was called for an offensive-zone slash at 1:23 of the third period, leading to Alex Laferriere’s power-play goal to make it 4-1 at 2:30. The Islanders also couldn’t sustain momentum after Adam Pelech’s shorthanded goal to make it 4-2 at 4:30.
Coach Patrick Roy cited several culprits, but not the 2-for-3 penalty kill. He was more concerned with the 0-for-3 power play that generated three shots and yielded three shorthanded chances. Turnovers and breakouts also were problematic.
“Our power play has to be better,” Roy said. “We gave too many chances to them. It was, again, another night where it could have given us a chance to get back in the game and we didn’t do it. Especially on the road, the power play has to be better.”
The Islanders were 1-for-4 on the power play in Wednesday’s trip-opening 5-1 loss in Anaheim on Wednesday night.
Ilya Sorokin (30 saves) faced 19 shots in the first 20 minutes and NaturalStatTrick.com calculated the Kings had 12 high-danger chances. Former Ranger Artemi Panarin scored his first goal for the Kings at 3:17 as a lapse in coverage with the top line and Pulock and Mathew Schaefer on the ice allowed him to get free below the left circle.
Sorokin played about a minute after having his stick knocked out of his hand without a teammate trying to retrieve it for him.
Goals by Samuel Helenius and Mikey Anderson 91 seconds apart as the Kings built a 3-0 lead at 15:51 of the second period really hurt. Kyle MacLean’s outlet pass was intercepted on the first goal and Pelech turned it over on the second.
Darcy Kuemper made 30 saves for the Kings (25-22-14), who got their first win under interim coach D.J. Smith in future Hall of Famer Anze Kopitar’s 1,500th NHL game.
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.
More Islanders
