Barry Trotz says Islanders have to be emotionally invested in their games

If the Islanders ever need a reminder through the rest of this regular season and whatever playoff run they have of how they absolutely cannot play, they provided themselves a prime example in Buffalo.

They concluded a two-game series against the NHL-worst Sabres on Tuesday night at KeyBank Center. It opened with a dispassionate 4-2 loss on Monday night as they blew a two-goal lead against a 28-year-old journeyman goalie making his NHL debut just two nights after the Islanders clinched their third consecutive playoff berth with an emotional 3-0 win over the Rangers at Nassau Coliseum.

"This is an opportunity to fight for positioning in the standings, fight for home-ice advantage," defenseman Adam Pelech said. "We need to be better going forward for the rest of the season heading into the playoffs."

"You’re not always going to have your best every night, but there’s intangibles you can do to try and help the team win," Josh Bailey said.

The Islanders have three regular-season games remaining after Tuesday, a two-game series against the Devils, East Division also-rans like the Sabres, starting on Thursday night at the Coliseum and the season finale in Boston next Monday.

Plenty of time to prove the loss to the Sabres was an aberration and get their game back to their standards before the playoffs begin.

"It’s a good point of emphasis that you’re not going to have success playing the way we did," coach Barry Trotz said. "No way, not our team. I always worried about this game coming from two emotional games against the Rangers. You have to be emotionally more invested than we were. And it showed in some of the stat packages for some of the guys. They got nothing accomplished because you have to have an emotional attachment to the game."

Under Trotz, the Islanders have earned a solid reputation around the NHL as a defensively sound team built for the playoffs. Meaning, their physical, structured brand of hockey can lead to success because of how hard it is for opponents to play against them.

Again, Monday was a very good reminder that the physical aspect to their game must be present. The Islanders built a 2-0 lead in the second period and essentially stopped skating or taking the body.

The Sabres, out of playoff contention almost from the start of the shortened season in January, are playing a carefree game with nothing on the line other than auditioning for jobs for next season. That style of play can be very dangerous to play against this time of the season.

"It definitely presents its challenges but the way to counteract it is the way we played that second Rangers game," Matt Martin said. "We came out and we were physical early and really played the way we need to play. If you do that against teams that are out of it, maybe you’re able to push them out of the game."

Instead, undrafted free-agent goalie Michael Houser, who has played mainly in the ECHL since 2012, made 34 saves on Monday playing his first game in any league since March 7, 2020. That earned Houser his second NHL start on Tuesday night.

"I didn’t know it was actually his debut," Martin said. "He looked calm. I don’t obviously know much about him. But he made some key saves for them. I don’t think we got to our game enough in the stretch of 60 minutes where we really grinded them down, got to the net and fired away. He made the saves he needed to make and we didn’t do a good enough job."

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.