ELMONT, N.Y. – Even after the final whistle mercifully blew, the standings at the end of the night still showed the New York Islanders in a playoff position.
The sky hasn’t fallen, the season isn’t over, nobody is hurt.
But, it isn’t even that it was a loss that was so painful on Monday night at UBS Arena, it’s the way it happened. Seven unanswered goals quickly evaporated a two-goal lead and helped squash a lot of the enthusiasm around an Islanders group that ultimately got crushed, 8-3, to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Both teams essentially swapped positions in the Metropolitan Division standings — Pittsburgh, at 90 points, now sits as the second seed, while the Islanders are third just one point behind — but there was little to be encouraged about, particularly in a matchup that may serve as a preview of the first round of the postseason if things stay the same.
Bigger if? If the Islanders get there. Both the Columbus Blue Jackets and Philadelphia Flyers are within striking distance for that third Metropolitan Division spot, which would send an Islanders team that has one and two games in hand on that duo, respectively, hurtling into a crowded race for the last wild card berth.
They need to figure it out. Quickly. And they’ll have to. They were scheduled to face the Buffalo Sabres on the road in the second half of their back-to-back on Tuesday night.
“I just felt like the first half of the game, we were quick on them, we had great sticks,” said head coach Patrick Roy. “In the second half of the game, I thought that we stopped pressing them and our sticks were not as good. You don’t like to be embarrassed like this in front of your fans, so we need to regroup and be ready for (Tuesday) night…that was probably one of our worst games defensively in a while. We can’t give that many chances and think we’re going to win hockey games.”
The remaining schedule for the Islanders is somewhat favorable, with five of the last seven games to be played at home. This last one, however, needs to be flushed and forgotten with the stakes as high as they are moving forward.
Defensively, however, things need to be tightened up.
“A loss is a loss,” said captain Anders Lee. “It’s not fair to our goaltenders that they had as many chances against as they did tonight, but we lost a big game tonight. We’re going into Buffalo, a team that’s one of the best teams in the league right now, and we need to get back on our side of things and get two points and right this ship.”