Late luck runs out for Isles vs. Caps
The Islanders didn’t have a comeback in them Saturday night.
Instead they took a trip back down to Earth, after they had swept through three opponents in the wildcard race, and lost to the Capitals, 5-1, at UBS Arena to give Washington’s playoff chances a gasp of air. The Islanders, meanwhile, ceded the first wild-card spot to the Penguins, who beat the Flyers to draw level on points, but with two games in hand.
As for the second wildcard spot, the Islanders might have used up their joker. After the Panthers lost in overtime to the Jets, they are three points behind with one game in hand — a reminder that as well as the Islanders have played lately, absolutely nothing is sealed yet.
“We gotta play better obviously,” Matt Martin said. “We’re by no means locked into a playoff spot. We’ve done what we needed to do to this point to kinda control our own destiny, so to speak. Now every night’s important. It’s still so tight that a [with] couple bad nights, it can change quickly.”
The Islanders put in the same kind of effort they had for much of their win Thursday over Pittsburgh — except for the miracle comeback at the end. The Capitals looked like the more energized team and had an easier time getting north as the Islanders, one man healthier after the return of Cal Clutterbuck, couldn’t seem to find the right line combinations and put up just 18 shots on goal.
The chance for another rally was there for the taking, with the Islanders trailing just 2-1 going into the third period, but they couldn’t capitalize.
Washington all but sealed the win when the Islanders committed the cardinal sin of losing track of Alexander Ovechkin at the front of the net just after a Capitals power play had expired. His initial attempt was saved, but Anthony Mantha easily cleaned up the rebound to make it 3-1 at 4:15 into the third.
“It kinda took the wind out of our sails,” Islanders coach Lane Lambert admitted.
Then, with 7:42 to go, Nic Dowd put a bow on the victory with a wrister past Semyon Varlamov. Fifty-nine seconds later, Rasmus Sandin’s wrister was tipped in by Nicklas Backstrom to pour salt on the wound.
The combination of going 0-for-4 on the power play while taking four penalties themselves did not help the Islanders, who had a promising start to the game, but held the lead for less than two minutes.
Pierre Engvall got the Islanders on the board with his first point since he was acquired from the Maple Leafs on Feb. 28, with a cross-crease feed that went off Washington’s Alexander Alexeyev and in 5:18 into the first period. But it was not even 90 seconds later when Dylan Strome drew the Capitals level with a wrist shot to beat Varlamov nearside.
The undercurrent of the match was that the Islanders didn’t seem to know what they wanted their lines to look like with Clutterbuck back from injury. At various points Clutterbuck skated on the first, third and fourth lines with the whole thing looking like a game of musical chairs. Engvall, Simon Holmstrom, and Josh Bailey all moved around as well.
Given the chemistry between Casey Cizikas and Hudson Fasching, that was a foreseeable issue, but still one the Islanders may need time to work through. With Jean-Gabriel Pageau soon to return and Mathew Barzal expected back before the end of the regular season, finding the right combinations won’t get any easier for Lambert, who will need to start healthy scratching a lineup mainstay when Pageau gets back.
“We were mixing because we weren’t generating,” Lambert said. “It comes back to, at times, you have to look for a little bit of a spark somewhere and try to see which combination you can get going.”
This time, there was no spark, and it is not clear what the lines will look like come Tuesday in Los Angeles.
“Once we get everybody back or whenever that happens,” Lambert said, “I see that as a luxury.”