The Islanders’ offseason shopping list just got longer.
This was Marcus Högberg’s net Thursday, with Ilya Sorokin down with a lower-body injury suffered Tuesday night in Nashville, and it’s Högberg whose long-term prospects are set back most by the Islanders’ worst performance of the season, a 9-2 loss to the Rangers.
There was plenty of blame, fault and embarrassment to go around, to be clear.
Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock were minus-5 and minus-4, respectively, with Pulock at fault for an awful turnover leading to the Rangers’ first goal.
Alexander Romanov was benched for 10 minutes of the second period after turning the puck over and failing to get back on Artemi Panarin’s goal at the end of the first, with coach Patrick Roy later saying he “didn’t notice” that Romanov had been benched. Bo Horvat was minus-5, so was Anders Lee.
“Not much to say,” Lee said. “We played a horses–t game.”
As a team and as an organization, the Islanders will wear the shame of this one, in which Rangers fans took over the UBS Arena stands and the Rangers took over the UBS Arena ice.
For all the bad nights throughout this season, all the injuries and brutal losses, this was the first time the Islanders did not look interested in competing and their pride was in question, with Kyle Palmieri saying as much afterward.
They are not officially eliminated, not until the Canadiens either gain one more point or the Islanders lose another game, but they are done and they know they are done.
If allowing seven goals in Nashville on Tuesday wasn’t enough evidence, then this was heaps more.
The Islanders hung Högberg out to dry.
And still, the Swede’s performance Thursday — his .720 save percentage across six games since returning from a broken hand a month ago — means the Islanders need to look at bringing in a backup goalie this summer.
“Just so disappointed,” a stunned and subdued Högberg said after allowing eight goals on 30 shots on a night when he was bizarrely pulled then put back in 4:43 later after Tristan Lennox allowed a goal on the second shot he saw.
Semyon Varlamov, who went down with a lower-body injury in late November, suffered a setback in rehab after the initial plan was for him to rejoin the team for practice when it got back from Utah in January and has not been heard from since, is no sure thing to be ready for training camp.
Even if he is, the 37-year-old now has missed time with injury in four straight seasons, including with what is self-evidently a serious issue this year.
Högberg did a fine job in what essentially was an emergency backup role in December and January, but in six games since coming back from a broken hand, he’s struggled badly.
With Sorokin’s status unclear between now and the end of the season, this looked like a chance for Högberg to get a de facto tryout to be the No. 2 in the fall.
Well, you can scratch that now.
As poorly as the Islanders played in front of him, Högberg leaked bad rebounds and bad goals. He looked without confidence in the crease and understandably so.
“We gave those odd-man rushes and it’s a team that moves the puck very well,” Roy said. “Most of them, they were side-to-side passes, and they scored on those ones. So I can’t say more than that.”
True, this wasn’t all about the goalie. But it was more than enough about the goalie.
The Islanders, who have ridden Sorokin hard for three straight years, can’t afford to take chances with his backup.
They need someone they can trust, they need someone who will stay healthy, and they need to lessen the workload of their No. 1 because he is just one year into an eight-year deal and there is a future to think about.
There is no choice but to make that a priority this offseason.
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