Islanders struggle to find consistency as road trip continues
Islanders center Mathew Barzal skates away from Coyotes defenseman J.J. Moser in the second period during an NHL game on Friday in Tempe, Ariz. Credit: AP/Rick Scuteri
LAS VEGAS — The Islanders have played some really good hockey against some really good teams this season. They’ve had some pretty poor performances against some less-than-elite competition, too. And, really, there’s been everything in between, often with the swings in quality coming period by period.
What it adds up to is maddening inconsistency for a team that entered Saturday barely hanging on to the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a concern,” Matt Martin said. “We’re confident in the team we are. But we’ve got to play like we did in Boston and like we did against New Jersey. We’ve got to do that every night. You can’t play good against New Jersey, play bad against Carolina, play good against Boston, play bad against [Arizona]. It’s not a recipe for success. We’ve got to be a lot better.”
The Islanders continued a five-game road trip against Vegas on Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena after a well-played 4-3 shootout loss to the NHL-best Bruins to start the trek on Tuesday night and a dud of a 5-4 loss to the bottom-feeding Coyotes on Friday night.
This trip gets no easier after leaving Las Vegas. The Islanders will face the injury-plagued but defending Stanley Cup champion Avalanche on Monday night before concluding their season series with the surging Rangers on Thursday night.
Before the trip, the Islanders, who entered Saturday’s game in a 2-5-1 skid, played as well as they have all season in a 6-4 road win over the Metropolitan Division-leading Devils before falling flat in a 3-0 loss to the second-place Hurricanes the next night at UBS Arena.
“If you look at the big picture, I’d say we’re in a fine spot,” Brock Nelson said. “I wouldn’t say we’re happy with where we’re at. I wouldn’t say we’re extremely disappointed. Probably just some games where we didn’t play up to the standards we’d like or thought we played well and would have liked to have gotten one or two points.
“It’s a long year. You try to win two, three, four, five, six [in a row]. With our standings, with how tight it is, in two or three days or four games, things can change pretty drastically in the Metro. You can’t get hung up on it every day.”
Still, Saturday marked the Islanders’ 32nd game. The season will be half-over by the first week of January, and the Islanders have yet to establish the consistency necessary of a true playoff contender.
The inability to gain consistent traction in their game almost certainly increases the urgency for president and general manager Lou Lamoriello to improve his roster with either a top-six scoring wing or a lefthanded-shooting defenseman — or perhaps both — well before the March 3 trade deadline regardless of how long Adam Pelech (suspected head injury) is out.
The Islanders entered Saturday 7-4-1 against teams holding playoff spots at the start of play that day and 10-9-0 against the rest of the league, including two losses to the Coyotes.
“We’ve played some really good hockey and then we’ve played some just average [hockey],” defenseman Ryan Pulock said. “I think the biggest thing for us is consistency. Where it doesn’t matter who we’re playing, every single night we bring the game that we need to play to give ourselves a chance.
“You’re not going to win every night no matter where the teams are in the standings. If you can feel good about yourself after the game, that you did everything you could, you did all the right things. That’s where we need to get to.”
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.
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