Stefen Rosner on Morning Cuppa Hockey Talking Islanders After another bad beat on this long West Coast road trip, a 2-1 shootout loss to the Calgary Flames, the New York Islanders are now 1-1-2 with one more game to go on Thursday night against the Detroit Red Wings before returning to Long Island. On the surface, the Islanders have now lost back-to-back games where they’ve held a lead in the third period. But the bigger picture is that the Islanders have recorded points in seven of their last nine games, going 4-2-3, and are holding down the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. Is that record ideal? Yes and no. When the news broke that Anthony Duclair, then Mat Barzal, then Adam Pelech, Alex Romanov, and Mike Reilly were all going to miss time with injuries, the easy option would have been for the team to shift their focus to next season, given how important these players were to their success. No, it’s not a shock that Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello kept the white flag in the drawer. He understood the challenge that head coach Patrick Roy had to deal with, and if the team could stay afloat, there was confidence that once the players returned from injury, this team could be buzzing. That record, without two-thirds of their top line and, until Tuesday’s game, without the entire left side of their blue line, is why this team has promise when healthy. The key word is "when" with none of the three players who will be back sooner than later -- Reilly had heart surgery on Tuesday and is out indefinitely -- have yet to skate. It's only November, so it’s easy not to look at the standings. For the Islanders, this is a desperate time already; the team does not want to have to play catch-up in the standings for another season like we've seen in each of the last two. The team has many surprising heroes who have stepped up and led the team to victories and point-grabbing during a taxing road trip. Road trips are hard as it is, multiple different cities in as many days, and playing against teams who have something to prove this early in the season. Can you imagine doing it shorthanded? It’s easy to think that, seeing the disappointing overtime losses and third-period collapses, it’s last season all over again. But this season is different: a team that is shorthanded and fighting to keep themselves in the race this early in the season with their star power source currently unplugged. Anders Lee, Jean Gabriel Pageau, Bo Horvat, Kyle Palmeri, Brock Nelson, Casey Cizikas, Pierre Engvall, Ryan Pulock, Scott Mayfield, and the strong goaltending duo of Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov have really maximized their “veteran presence” in leading this team to extremely close games where it seems like every game is there for the taking. Image [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjEwNzg4OTUyODI5ODYzOTEz/usatsi_24702954-2.jpg] It’s also important to recognize the young guys who have stepped up drastically and filled big roles when it seemed like their time in the big club wouldn’t be just yet. Isaiah George, Grant Hutton, and Dennis Cholowski have been nothing short of impressive in their early stints with the club on the blue line. When it is this early in the season, wins are certainly important. However, when a team is depleted with injuries, you take the points. Could the points left on the table come back to bite them? For sure. It isn’t exactly pretty or impressive to be 1-1-2 on a road trip but for the sake of making a push for the playoffs in April, these points, even if it’s not as many as they should have, are vital.
