the first prompted by the concussion spotter<\/a> and the second after Schaefer took Luke Schenn\u2019s shot off his right leg. <\/p>\nThat relief, however, was blunted by the news after the game that Schaefer still had to be examined by team doctors before being completely cleared.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regardless of the situation with their superstar rookie, Tuesday wasn\u2019t anything like the Islanders\u2019 best. They were too wide open, not hard enough around the net and boxed out of their own crease in the decisive moments by a Winnipeg club that had won just two of its past 10 coming into the night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the Islanders have struggled this year, those reasons have usually been the common denominator. If general manager Mathieu Darche opts to buy between now and the trade deadline, there\u2019s his roadmap for what to look for. But Tuesday night, there was no help coming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After going down 3-0 in the second, it looked like the Islanders might work their way out of the mess. Anthony Duclair, Emil Heineman and Kyle MacLean scored consecutive goals to tie the game at 3-3 in a span of 3:58, Heineman doing so via penalty shot, and on another night, that momentum might have vaulted the Islanders into two points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On this one, not so.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just as quickly as the Islanders grabbed momentum, they lost it again. Dylan DeMelo\u2019s shot from the top of the zone went through Nino Niederreiter\u2019s screen to put Winnipeg back up just 1:02 after MacLean had tied it. Coach Patrick Roy\u2019s challenge for goaltender interference on DeMelo\u2019s goal failed, and the Islanders coach cited Rule 69.3 afterward to argue that Niederreiter had impeded Ilya Sorokin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Emil Heineman scores on a penalty shot against goalie Connor Hellebuyck during the second period of the Islanders\u2019 loss to the Jets. Terrence Lee-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth feet were in the crease and Ilya cannot move up,\u201d Roy said. \u201cWe thought his blocker kind of interfered a little bit with their guy. That\u2019s the reason why we challenged.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
For good measure, Adam Lowry boxed out Tony DeAngelo in the crease to tip in Neal Pionk\u2019s shot with 20 seconds to go in the second to make it 5-3 going into the last intermission.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the last 20 minutes, the Islanders did tighten things up defensively far more than the free-flowing first 40. Unable to get any meaningful traffic around Connor Hellebuyck\u2019s crease, though, their attempt at a push fell flat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Schaefer\u2019s shot from the top of the zone made it 5-4 with 45 seconds left in regulation, but proved too little and too late.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOn the ice from Long Island\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Islanders by Ethan Sears, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Truth be told, this was as sloppy a game as the Islanders had played all season. They bled two-on-ones, transitioned the puck poorly and most of all, gave more traffic than the George Washington Bridge at rush hour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fourth one, there was a point shot with a screen in front, the fifth one was the same thing. First one was a rebound in front of the net, we lost the battle,\u201d Roy said. \u201cSo it\u2019s more fundamentals than structure.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mathew Barzal was beaten to Mark Scheifele\u2019s rebound by Kyle Connor for the game\u2019s opening goal. All Josh Morrissey had to do on Winnipeg\u2019s second goal was float it through the mess of bodies with Adam Boqvist screening his own netminder after the Islanders failed to transition the puck. <\/p>\n
And on Jonathan Toews\u2019 3-0 power-play goal, no one was near him at the crease.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New York Islanders\u2019 Anders Lee (27) and Winnipeg Jets\u2019 Neal Pionk (4) battle for position in front of goaltender Connor Hellebuyck (37) during the third period of their NHL hockey game in Winnipeg, Tuesday Jan. 13, 2026. AP<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a couple times, our clears maybe bit us a bit, getting the puck past the blue line, get it out,\u201d MacLean said. \u201cEspecially at the end of our shifts. Overall there\u2019s a couple breakdowns, couple shots from the point that got through. We\u2019ll clean that up for Edmonton.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WINNIPEG, Manitoba \u2014 For the second time in three days, the Islanders played pond hockey.\u00a0 This time, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2051],"tags":[98513,7,98514,226,1917,18994,255,2321,2097,6,4475,5737,9,4474],"class_list":{"0":"post-675960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-jets","8":"tag-anthony-duclair","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ilya-sorokin","11":"tag-jets","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-islanders","14":"tag-new-york-jets","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkjets","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-nhl","19":"tag-ny-sports-minute","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-winnipeg-jets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115892103840751695","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}