Penalties and poor penalty killing have sent Islanders on six-game losing streak

SEATTLE — The common refrain from the Islanders is they’re playing well at even strength.

But the six-game losing streak they brought into Thursday night against the Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena — the penultimate match of a four-game Western swing — has been built on horrendous special teams’ play.

The Islanders even went 2-for-2 on the power play against the Canucks on Wednesday night and couldn’t do better than a 4-3 overtime loss. The Canucks were 3-for-6 and scored the equalizer on a two-minute, five-on-three man advantage — defenseman Noah Dobson and Jean-Gabriel Pageau were penalized on the same sequence — as the Islanders’ lack of discipline has fed into a porous penalty kill that coach Lane Lambert criticized for being too passive.

“It just seems to be killing us every night,” said Bo Horvat, the former Canucks captain who scored at even strength in his first homecoming to Vancouver. “We’re just not getting those kills at the right times and they seem to be costing us every mistake we make. I thought our five-on-five game was good. The power play was good. It’s just a matter of putting it all together right now.”

“We’ve got to stay out of the box right now,” said Casey Cizikas, like Horvat relied upon as a penalty killer. “It’s a struggle out there. We’ve just got to refocus on the kill and get back to what made us so good over the past few years. It’s definitely tough but it’s something that we can do. It’s something that we can achieve.”

The Islanders entered Thursday’s match with their penalty kill ranked 29th in the NHL at 37-for-52 (71.2%), having allowed nine power-play goals in their previous six games. Last season, the Islanders were eighth in the league at 82.2%, the third straight season the Islanders’ penalty kill was in the NHL’s top 10.

The Islanders’ power play entered Thursday ranked 17th at 8-for-40 (20.0%) but had been 3-for-18 (16.7%) over an eight-game span before Wednesday’s perfecto.

Taking silly penalties at inopportune times — three in the second period against the Canucks and three more in the third, including the Dobson/Pageau exacta — has been a main factor in the Islanders’ being outscored 15-3 in the third period of their previous eight games entering Thursday.

So there’s been a here-we-go-again quality to the Islanders’ late-game collapses.

They led the Canucks 3-1 in the second period. They had a three-goal lead in the second period of a 4-3 overtime loss to the Hurricanes at UBS Arena on Nov. 4 and a two-goal lead in the third period of a 4-3 overtime loss to the visiting Red Wings on Oct. 30.

“It’s tough not to feel that way when things are going the way they are right now,” Horvat said. “The frustrating part is, five-on-five, like I said, we’re not playing bad hockey. It’s just a matter of us putting it all together. Our special teams has to be better and us guys that go out there in those key moments have to be better as well.”

Lambert, though, rejected the suggestion that the Islanders are now just expecting bad things to happen. He said that certainly wasn’t the case against the Canucks.

“No,” Lambert said. “They scored on the five-on-three and then I thought we had pushes. (Anders) Lee could have scored. We had a bunch of chances to score. It was a totally different pushback than we’ve seen.”

Still, the Islanders are making it too easy for opponents.

“We’ve just got to do a good job of staying out of the box,” Cizikas said. “We’ve just got to be smart.”

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

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.