CHICAGO — Meet the healthier Islanders, same as the injured Islanders.
If anyone thought Sunday was the chance for the Islanders to write the first chapter of the turnaround of their season, with Mat Barzal and Adam Pelech back in the lineup, with the chance to get above NHL .500, with the chance to get into a playoff spot and with an opponent at the bottom of the league, all those aspirations went “splat” onto the United Center ice.
The Islanders instead put forth an inconsistent performance that started disjointedly and ended with the gut punch of Connor Bedard’s late game-winner in a 5-3 loss to the Blackhawks, as the guys they are still missing — namely Bo Horvat and Anthony Duclair — stuck out more than the guys who returned.
“It’s just moments of the game that are non-negotiable,” Noah Dobson told The Post. “Gotta manage better. We gave up one in the last minute of the first period. Same thing there in the third [with a] tie game. Those are the moments where you gotta make sure you bear down, details. You can’t be giving up goals at that time of the game.”
Whatever the health status of the lineup, failing to sweep this home-and-home that looked like such a golden schedule opportunity will haunt the Islanders.
When they lost in this building last year, the head coach got fired the next day.
Patrick Roy is in no such danger, but that his team cannot put forth a consistent or cohesive enough game to stack points tells you that the problems when he took over last January extended far beyond the head coach — and a whole lot of them still aren’t fixed.
The Islanders’ structure and play got better as Sunday’s game went on, but a slow start — which has been a prevailing issue recently — combined with untimely mistakes, such as Alexander Romanov’s delay of game penalty that gave Chicago a five-on-three from which Teuvo Teravainen scored late in the second, ultimately overshadowed it.
“It’s a 2-2 game, we throw a puck in the stands, give them a five-on-three,” Roy said. “There’s mistakes you could make, but there’s some you cannot make. It will cost you at some point.”
Despite all of that, a 3-2 deficit going into the third period looked navigable.
Indeed it was, as Dobson cut to the slot and finished through traffic to tie the game just 47 seconds into the third — and the Islanders threatened for the remainder of the period.
What they didn’t do, however, was score.
And when the Blackhawks finally got a grade-A chance with 54 seconds to go in regulation, they made the Islanders pay.
Bedard finished a loose puck with a shot that went through the legs of Ilya Sorokin and trickled in, with the goalie losing track of the puck as it crossed the line in slow motion.
“It’s a shot in the middle, good shot,” Sorokin told The Post. “A lot of men [in front] of me. Goes to the blocker. Unlucky goal.”
Even for a team that specializes in brutal losses, this one had some extra kick in it, with Connor Murphy’s empty-netter sealing the deal.
“It’s hard to win in this league when you don’t play a full 60,” Dobson said. “Whether it’s starts or a bad period, you gotta find a way to eliminate those.”
The first period has been where the Isles have had issues over the last few games, and they did so again Sunday, looking vulnerable in their defensive-zone structure and struggling to compete passes.
Barzal, who played 20:45, also took some time to work into the game, sending four passes out of the offensive zone early on.
Chicago took advantage when an uncovered Ilya Mikheyev converted Teravainen’s feed to the low slot for a 1-0 lead 9:08 into the match.
The Islanders tied the game on Ryan Pulock’s point shot through traffic at the 18:43 mark, but less than a minute later squandered the chance to go into the dressing room tied, losing track of Taylor Hall and watching him score with 20 seconds left in the first period.
Simon Holmstrom pulled it back early in the second, but for a game in which the Islanders had the better of the chances, it tells you something that they never led.
“We needed one more puck tonight,” Anders Lee said. “One of those nights, you just need one more and we didn’t get it.”
It’s not the first time.
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