There are a number of reasons why the Islanders find themselves 17 points out of a playoff spot.
Let’s be honest…a lot of it is on them because of less than stellar play this season but there are also some factors that play into why this season has been filled with challenges. The Islanders have had to endure a season-opening 13-game road trip, a COVID outbreak, injuries and a ton of rescheduled games forcing the condensed schedule they are currently in the middle of.
But as former Giants and Jets coach Bill Parcells used to say, “you are what you are”.
And what the Islanders are now is a team that just can’t seem to get themselves going as they return home from a 2-2-1 road trip, an excursion that ended with Tuesday night’s 5-3 loss in Colorado. It was yet another game that the Islanders played well enough to win, but the end result wound up being symbolic of what this team has gone through this season.
With the game tied at 3-3 in the third period, the Islanders thought that Sebastian Aho had scored but it was waved off and 59 seconds later Andre Burkovsky scored the game winner. Later in the third period, JG Pageau had a great chance to score but the puck never found its way into the net.
For whatever reason, the Islanders have not received help from above this season and sometimes it’s been because of their own doing.
“Last year with the hockey Gods we would have scored,” said Islanders Head Coach Barry Trotz. “Pageau would have scored. The Sebastian Aho goal would have ended up being in. (Anders Lee’s) stick would have knocked it in rather than kept it from going over the line and Bellows’ stick would have missed that puck (shot by Pageau) and it would have went in the net and we would be talking a different tune here.”
During the first three seasons of the Lou Lamoriello/Barry Trotz regime, Islanders Country has, for the most part, been singing the classic Billy Joel song “I’ve Loved These Days” but this season has been more like “And So It Goes” because things just haven’t gone the way most people expected heading into the season.
The Islanders were supposed to be a Stanley Cup contender, but things haven’t gone according to plan.
And now, the Islanders are back on Long Island to begin a six-game homestand starting on Thursday night against the Vancouver Canucks at UBS Arena.
The hope is that the Islanders can bottle the good things that they did on the road trip and try to find some consistency.
“This trip, outside of LA, we were pretty resilient,” said Islanders defenseman Ryan Pulock, who scored his first goal of the season during the loss to the Avalanche. “Now it’s a matter of regrouping here, building on that, going home and finding a way to get on a streak at home.”
“Outside of a period and a half or two periods in LA, we played some good hockey,” said Islanders forward Zach Parise. “I think we can all agree on that. We have to move forward. We can look at a lot of good things that we did.
There’s a lot of good from the trip.”
The Islanders have played just 50 games so far this season, the fewest in the National Hockey League and they’re currently under NHL .500 at 20-22-8 with five games in hand on the Washington Capitals, the team that sits in the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.
It's going to take a massive run by the Islanders over the final 32 games to challenge for the playoffs but their body of work so far this season suggest that the mountain may just be too tall to climb. They have had trouble beating good teams and they have had way too many self-inflicted wounds in winnable games but they just didn’t take care of business.
There have been some signs of the way the Islanders played the last few seasons…just not enough.
“Our structure, for the most part, has been really good,” said Trotz. “Our attention and our work ethic and all that has been pretty good. I like a lot of parts of our game but we haven’t been able to close the deal on a couple of them.”
A lot of the trouble this season has been on the Islanders themselves. There have been too many times where the group hasn’t performed like the team that went to back-to-back NHL final fours.
They also just haven’t had the “puck luck” that they seemed to get the last couple of seasons.
“In some ways not getting the result or something strange happening to us,” said Trotz. “There’s some stuff you can control and some you can’t.”
The Islanders are in still in search of finding that right blend of executing while also getting some help from the Hockey Gods.