RALEIGH, N.C. — In the Eastern Conference’s wild-card race, currently being run in three-legged fashion, the question, ‘Why not us?’ is usually answered by whoever asks in short order.
Behold this weekend, the Islanders’ answer.
Why not them? Well, how about a power play that scored in consecutive games for the first time all season, yet still allowed a crucial shorthanded goal during a four-minute double minor on Sunday with the game tied? Or how about the two poor starts, 24 hours apart, which put them down 3-0 in Tampa and 2-0 in Carolina, respectively? Or the goaltending, which coach Patrick Roy outright said wasn’t good enough after Marcus Hogberg stopped just 24 of 30 shots against the Hurricanes?
After Sunday’s 6-4 defeat to the ‘Canes capped an 0-2 road trip and extended a burgeoning losing streak to five, you could look at the standings, too. The Rangers won Saturday night and the Canadiens won Sunday, so the Islanders’ gap is now three points to the playoff cutline as they come home for four of their next five games in desperate, desperate need of wins.
“Played well but we didn’t find a way to win,” Tony DeAngelo told The Post. “It really doesn’t matter if you play like crap or play great. You just gotta find ways to win.”
Like on Saturday, there were moments and stretches on Sunday where they looked like a match for Carolina. They led 3-2 early in the second after Pierre Engvall scored his second goal of the evening, a laser off the rush, and all the momentum was at the Islanders’ backs. Instead of putting their foot down, the Islanders let the ‘Canes right back up.
Max Tsyplakov took a needless penalty for hooking, which Sebastian Aho converted for the tying goal, wiring a one-timer past Hogberg from the right circle at 8:35 of the period. Then after a heroic shift from Alexander Romanov, who cleared the puck off the line then took a high stick from Jalen Chatfield, the Islanders’ power play showed up as the worst version of itself, letting Seth Jarvis score on a shorthanded rush during a four-minute double minor in which it failed to produce anything.
“It’s my fault there,” DeAngelo said. “Just gotta be a little bit tighter instead of pivoting out the other way. It’s a big goal to give up. Kinda changed the game,now we’re chasing again rather than playing even or maybe even taking the lead.”
Kyle Palmieri also blamed himself.
“I was trying to chip that one by, [Jaccob] Slavin made a nice play to knock it down,” Palmieri said. “It’s tough when the turnover’s on me.”
The Islanders did not play dead in the third, with Anders Lee tying the game just 4:05 into the period, tapping in Bo Horvat’s feed to the crease.
That momentum, however, proved short-lived when Dmitry Orlov put a shot through traffic and behind Hogberg just over five minutes later.
Jarvis scored his second of the game to put it away with 2:46 to go in the third.
“Today, maybe we could start with some saves,” Roy said, asked what was missing from the Islanders’ game. “After that, could be decision-making and obviously, if I look at the last goal, we can’t turn over pucks like this and think the puck would not finish in the back of our net.”
Roy was left to laud the Islanders’ resilience while acknowledging that they couldn’t do enough for the second time in just over 24 hours.
“We can’t give up three, four goals and expect [to be] winning games. That doesn’t work that way,” he said. “We gotta make sure we can’t give four goals. We gotta do a better job defending.”
Forget four — the Islanders just gave up 11 in a 30-hour span.
There’s still enough time left in the season, the standings are still tight enough, that the Islanders could conceivably find their way into a playoff spot. But at 74 points through 73 games, uninspiring doesn’t begin to cover it.
In 2021-22, the only season since 2018-19 that they’ve missed the playoffs, the Islanders finished with 84 points. Getting to even that number now doesn’t look guaranteed — it requires 10 points in their last nine games.
Why not them?
“I think the guys are giving me everything they have,” Roy said.
The plain, harsh fact is that it’s not enough.
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