The Islanders’ cracks are starting to add up into a chasm.
In their first game back at home after a four-game road trip, with defenseman Adam Pelech back in the lineup, facing a Canucks team on its second night of a back-to-back, the Isles responded to the confluence of positive circumstances by losing to Vancouver, 5-2.
More concerning, the loss marked their fourth in the last five games and dropped their record to 4-5-3 since Dec. 15.
Overtime losses aside, that means they’ve won just four of their last 12 games and there is only so long that collecting loser points can keep them afloat in the airtight Metropolitan Division, where just two points separated the Isles in third from the Penguins in seventh at the start of the day.
Pelech did not quite look himself in his return from a presumed wrist injury and Ilya Sorokin, appearing in a seventh straight game with Semyon Varlamov hurt, stopped 28 of 32 shots, continuing a season in which he has been good but not great.
Thing is, the Islanders right now need their goaltender to be great because their defense is anything but.
Tuesday, they let a red-hot Canucks team — which completed a sweep through the local teams — hem them in all too often, struggling to beat their forecheck and deal with superstar defenseman Quinn Hughes.
Hughes’ pair with Filip Hronek was responsible for each of the opening two goals, with Hronek adding insult to injury by scoring at the 16:25 mark of the first right after Casey Cizikas limped off having blocked a Nikita Zadorov slap shot. (Cizikas briefly returned, then left the game for good in the second).
Hughes then got in on the act a little over two minutes later, walking from the circle to the slot before completing an excellent individual effort to make it 2-0.
It only got worse from there.
Pelech’s turnover followed by Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller playing catch across the crease let Pettersson make it 3-0 10:20 into the second.
Then quickly after Brock Nelson’s power-play goal seemed to give the Islanders something to build on, the Canucks started tilting the ice again.
That culminated in Tyler Myers beating Sorokin clean with a slap shot from the top of the right circle to put Vancouver up 4-1 going into the second intermission — the sort of shot Sorokin rarely lets in.
There was no late comeback effort waiting for the Islanders, either.
Down three in the third, the Islanders instead failed to generate much of a push at all, aside from a late goal by Nelson to save some face.
Dakota Joshua’s empty-net goal within seconds after the Isles pulled Sorokin shut the door on any comeback hopes.
Most alarming about Tuesday is that the Islanders came in with two days of rest facing a team that had played on Monday — and looked like the slower, less-energetic team.
It wasn’t especially close, either.
A close second was Sorokin, who has not played to his 2022-23 level all season long and let in four goals for the 15th time in 28 starts this year.
It is unfair to blame that entirely on the goalie, since he has faced more shots than anyone else in the league and is playing in front of a defense that has been battered all year long.
But it is far from ideal, and he wasn’t near his best on Tuesday.
Right now, far from ideal describes the Islanders pretty well too.
Source
