The Senators got the Islanders started on this tailspin by beating them a month ago in Ottawa. And they may have delivered the dagger to the Islanders season Saturday afternoon on Long Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Islanders\u2019 playoff odds hit life support as an 0-for-5 power play sent them on the fast track to a 3-0 defeat at home to the Senators, just their second shutout loss of the season. The second wild-card spot is now officially out of reach, and the Islanders could be eliminated from playoff contention altogether as soon as Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The only path remaining to the playoffs is to overtake the Flyers for third in the Metro, but a Philadelphia win Saturday night in Winnipeg would put the Isles three points back with two games remaining for each team. Combine that with an Islanders loss Sunday to the Canadiens and you can stick a fork in the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur season didn\u2019t end tonight,\u201d coach Pete DeBoer said. \u201cAs tough as that feels walking out of the rink here today, we gotta be prepared to take care of business, which is winning the last two games. If someone\u2019s gonna beat us out of that last playoff spot, we gotta make them earn it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ottawa Senators defenseman Jake Sanderson (85) celebrates with the team after scoring on New York Islanders goaltender Ilya Sorokin (30) during the third period at UBS Arena on Saturday, April 11, 2026, in Elmont, NY. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
While the Islanders had no choice but to be realistic about their chances of pulling off a miracle after firing Patrick Roy and hiring DeBoer with four games left in the season, the dressing room afterward was something bordering on stunned. The urgency that had been missing over the last few weeks under Roy was there Saturday. This loss was a matter of execution \u2014 on the power play and in the offensive zone \u2014 as the Islanders let a solid performance go to waste.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFelt like we worked our asses off tonight,\u201d Cal Ritchie told The Post. \u201cWe worked hard tonight. Felt like we deserved better. We gotta win these next two to have a shot, that\u2019s our focus.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Start with the power play, because it has been an issue all season and because it was the central issue on Saturday. The Islanders were not only an abysmal 0-for-5, but had just three shots in 10 minutes of power-play time. For good measure, they let up a shorthanded goal to Ridly Greig, who got up ice after Tony DeAngelo could not get to JG Pageau\u2019s drop pass at the top of the zone, and finished Michael Amadio\u2019s feed for a 1-0 lead at 13:06 of the first.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ottawa carried that lead into the third period as the Islanders, again and again, fumbled chances and did not so much as look threatening on the power play.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their fifth chance of the game at 5-on-4 came at 7:17 of the third and may have been their worst. The Islanders struggled to enter the zone and looked hesitant to shoot when they did. It was a lack of confidence personified.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey held the blue line really well,\u201d Anders Lee said. \u201cYou watched our break-ins, we couldn\u2019t get in. \u2026 They were on top of it from the get-go, right across the blue line. They made it really difficult to get set up. When we did get set up, we had some looks and some chances. They denied quite a bit coming into the zone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
New York Islanders center Bo Horvat (14) crosses the puck during the second period against the Ottawa Senators at UBS Arena, Saturday, April 11, 2026, in Elmont, NY. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
Adding insult to injury, Ottawa sealed the game on its own 5-on-3 power play, when Jake Sanderson cleaned up Dylan Cozens\u2019 rebound to extend the lead to 2-0 at 12:36 of the third.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Amadio tacked on an empty-netter to seal it with 2:31 to go.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During training camp, the common refrain was that if the Islanders had been just average on the power play a year ago, they would have made the playoffs. They achieved average on the penalty kill, but have been entirely unable to do so on the power play, and it appears set to make the difference again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Islanders were up ice for much of a match that was played with playoff-like physicality from the moment Anders Lee and Brady Tkachuk dropped gloves off the opening faceoff. They finished every check, and Kyle MacLean came flying after Nikolas Matinpalo for good measure when the Finn got in a shoving match with Matthew Schaefer early on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New York Islanders center Marc Gatcomb (16) and defenseman Scott Mayfield (24) leave the ice after losing to the Ottawa Senators. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
They could not, though, penetrate a note-perfect Ottawa defensive structure. The Senators did a terrific job keeping the Islanders to the outside and out of the danger areas all game long. Offensive-zone cycles were rendered useless, and there were no odd-man rushes to speak of.\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
It made for a game in which the Islanders had little choice but to convert their power-play chances to win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This team has never found a way to win games with that recipe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And now their season may end Tuesday because of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Senators got the Islanders started on this tailspin by beating them a month ago in Ottawa. And…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,277,159,4,25,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-550658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-ilya-sorokin","10":"tag-new-york-islanders","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-ottawa-senators","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116388635605852321","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}