Down in the slumps
Punchless Islanders pounded by Bruins
On a day when Doug Weight said he wanted to see “some emotion and some fight” from his team when it fell behind — after a 5-8-2 December — the Islanders only sank deeper into their slump.
They came back from one deficit but lacked any further punches in a 5-1 loss Tuesday night to the Bruins at Barclays Center.
“Adversity is hitting us between the eyes right now as a group, as a staff, as players. We’ve gotta find a way,” Weight said. “If you’re going to use words like flat or a little sluggish at times in the second and third [periods], getting overpowered, it’s concerning. But it’s not going away. We got three really big games and we gotta figure it out. We gotta go to work [Wednesday] and get back our mojo, our fierceness that we seemed to have let drift.”
Jaroslav Halak (33 saves) kept the Islanders in it as long as he could despite being battered by a Boston attack that controlled possession for long stretches of the second and third periods. After the Bruins went ahead for good at 8:28 of the second, Halak kept it a one-goal deficit with strong play until a Cal Clutterbuck turnover midway through the third gave way to a two-on-one that Brad Marchand finished off for a 3-1 lead.
The Islanders (20-16-4) went down quietly, getting outshot 29-14 over the final two periods.
“It’s hard to score goals when we’re spending the majority of the game in our own zone,” defenseman Adam Pelech said. “I think our goaltenders have been playing well and lately we’ve been hanging them out to dry. We all know we need to improve in the ‘D’ zone and figure out a way to do that fast.”
Weight said before the game that the staff had tinkered with the Islanders’ defense, focusing on getting the puck out faster. And while they struggled to get it out of their zone at all Tuesday night, Weight said it had “nothing to do with X’s and O’s.”
“Some guys have disappeared,” the coach said. “We have to challenge them. We have to challenge some ice times. You can only do so many things. Some guys are going to have to start answering the bell on a consistent basis.”
The Bruins (22-10-6) took a lead in the first period, though it only lasted for 1:13 as Jordan Eberle found the equalizer. The Islanders got a gift when Brandon Carlo lost a puck in front of his own net and Eberle took advantage, scooping it up and stickhandling around Tuukka Rask to tie the game.
But that was the only offense they could muster against Rask, who made 25 saves.
“We were slow tonight,” Eberle said. “We weren’t crisp on passing. … I don’t think you question the passion, just the execution. We weren’t sharp as far as passes and systematically.”
The Islanders had just finished killing off a power play midway through the second period when Patrice Bergeron snagged the puck out of the air behind the Islanders net and played it to himself, tucking home a goal off Halak from a tough angle for the go-ahead goal.
“We gotta play a lot better,” captain John Tavares said. “It’s not good enough from our group, starting with myself, just setting the tone the right way and going out there and playing to our expectation and our standard. But I know the effort and the attitude is always there and the preparation is always there.”
The Islanders are looking for an answer, trying to find Weight’s call for fight and emotion level that has gone missing.
“Obviously it wasn’t where it needed to be,” Pelech said. “Everyone here knows that and I think that’s a major reason why we’re spending so much time in our own zone.”