The New York Islanders could have woken up Tuesday morning needing just a point against the Montreal Canadiens Wednesday to clinch a wild-card spot. Instead, they dropped the ball...puck...in a 5-2 loss to the Washington Capitals. Here's what the players and head coach Lane Lambert had to say.
The New York Islanders could have woken up Tuesday morning needing just a point against the Montreal Canadiens Wednesday to clinch a wild-card spot. Instead, they dropped the ball...puck...in a 5-2 loss to the Washington Capitals.
The Islanders came out as flat as they have all season, allowing two goals in the opening 1:03.
By the end of the first period, the Islanders were staring down a 3-0 deficit.
READ: Islanders Stunned by Capitals 5-2, Playoffs No Longer in Their Hands
As for what went wrong early, no one in the room could put their finger on it.
"I don't know, to be honest," Islanders forward Zach Parise said. He also made a critical, obvious point that there was still a lot of time left to make something of the game, which they didn't.
When Parise was asked if his team lacked urgency, especially early, a frustrated no. 11 wasn't having it.
"The urgency's always there for us. I think that's thrown around a little loosely," Parise said. "You can never convince me that we weren't urgent and we weren't ready to play. They just got a few early. I wouldn't say that we didn't have urgency. I don't think that's fair."
Forward Brock Nelson, however, gave a different answer.
"Probably not," Nelson said when asked the same question. The response was "Not sure exactly," as to why that was.
"I don't think I have a specific reason on why the way things went the way they did. I think everyone knew the importance. We've had these games for a few weeks now where we've said they were important. Tonight, yeah, I don't know exactly what caused the start, but that was the difference, and now we need a little bit of help."
With the Florida Panthers earning a point against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Islanders are no longer in control of their own destiny.
The power play, which has been extremely brutal as of late, had three opportunities but mustered just one shot.
"I thought we had a couple, but yeah, I'm not sure exactly on that. I thought we had a couple looks. Right now, it's tough. It feels like you get a look...you're not getting the next bounce," Nelson said.
Islanders head coach Lane Lambert was not thrilled with his power-play units.
"I didn't see enough shots," Lambert said. "So move the puck around. At some point, somebody's got to get it to the net. When we did get it to the net a couple of times we did create opportunities, but we had opportunities to score and get back in the game, and we didn't do it."
The power play has now gone eight games without a goa, 0-16 over that span.
As for what Lambert thought about the slow start: "It's tough to explain. We made some mistakes right off the hop. We had the puck on our stick, we gave it to them. We lost a face-off, they scored...tripped over our own stick. So some errors were made, and that put us in a hole."
Lambert agreed with Nelson about if his team had enough intensity from the get-go:
"Well, apparently not. We ended up in our own zone, and we didn't get the puck out, so we have to deal with it. We have to move on to the next game, but it was disappointing for sure."
Islanders captain Anders Lee was brutally on it.
"Obviously a horrible start. We put ourselves in a hole down three. After that, next 40, 50 minutes, we had plenty of chances," Lee said. "Couldn't get enough to go early enough. We obviously got a couple late, but you put yourself down three, you've got to chip away. We just weren't able to get them until the end.
"One game left. We gotta go win it [...] It's a frustrating loss. Came in tonight with an opportunity..."
The New York Islanders now pray on that the Chicago Blackhawks can upset the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night.