The Islanders are running out of time to turn their season around.
The Islanders are running out of time to turn their season around.
ELMONT, NY -- When Patrick Roy hit the ice for his first practice with the New York Islanders, the game plan wasn't so much about the structure or systems.
He planned to get his new players to play like a team again.
"For us to be successful going forward, we've got to all pull on the same rope," Islanders forward Bo Horvat said. "There can't just be one guy going. Everybody has to contribute, and I think that was his main message today."
Despite the lack of wins, it appeared early on in Roy's tenure that Horvat and the team were buying into what their new bench boss was selling.
But now, 12 games into the Roy experience (4-5-3), not enough of the team is pulling the rope in the right direction.
After what could have been a monumental moment in the Islanders season last Tuesday, beating the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-4 in overtime after being embarrassed at MetLife Stadium in a 6-5 overtime loss to the cross-town rival New York Rangers, the Islanders followed that up with a 4-0 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday.
It was actually a pretty good road game for New York, with 38 shots but failing to beat goaltender Jordan Binnington. The game was decided in the second period when the Islanders allowed three goals in 32 seconds.
The Islanders needed to find a way to build on that performance despite the result when they hosted the second wild-card spot Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday,
It was and is time for New York, and when the puck dropped in Elmont, both teams knew the magnitude of the matchup and how critical coming away with two points was.
But only one team, collectively, played like it, and that was Tampa, who had all four lines rolling (they went 11 forwards, seven defensemen) in a 4-2 win over the Islanders.
They had no answers for the Lightning early, who played as if they were on the power play for most of the opening 20 minutes rather than just two minutes when defenseman Adam Pelech was in the box.
For a second straight game, the Islanders allowed goals in short order, dishing the puck out of the net twice in a 1:22-minute span,
Horvat scored between the two Tampa tallies, but the Lightning challenged for offside and won.
Against elite goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, being down a pair is not where you want to be.
The Islanders did push late, with Ilya Sorokin on the bench for the extra attacker twice, scoring two in under four minutes, but that was all she wrote as the Islanders saw themselves drop seven points back of a playoff spot with 25 games to go.
"We knew how big these points were coming in for both teams," Lightning forward Brayden Point said after the game. "I liked our game. I liked our compete, and I'm happy we got the job done, especially considering last game. They took it to us pretty good (a 6-2 Islanders win on Feb. 8)."
A frustrated Kyle Palmieri kept it honest inside the Islanders room when asked why the urgency wasn't there through the opening two periods in such a critical game.
"I thought defensively we were a little late trying to close on guys," Palmieri said. "The way our system works, we got to try and anticipate and be on top of our guys and take away time and space, and we were unable to do that.
Then Palmieri was asked if he thought the urgency was where it needed to be consistently.
"You can grip your stick tight and run your heads through the boards, but it's not going to win you hockey games," Palmieri said. "We have to be smart, and we have to work hard, and we have to do it together. It can't just be one line or four or five guys. We all have to pull on the rope in the same direction, and we have to continue to get better at it. It's not always about running around like a chicken with his head cut off."
There's that pulling on the rope line again.
"It's about being poised, making plays when they're there, winning our battles, and competing. I think you could always be better at that," the forward said. "We'll continue to try to strive for a better version of ourselves."
Not only is the group not pulling on the rope in the same direction, but it's getting awfully close to snapping with 25 games to go.