The Flyers downed the Isles 4-1 yesterday. Another bad loss to a team serving as a roadblock to a playoff spot for the OrangeAndBlue. The loss puts the Islanders seven points back of Philly for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The Islanders now reside in 12th place out of 15 teams in the East.
They have 12 games to play. How likely is it a team can make up seven points in just 12 games? Not bloody likely. Even if the Islanders go 9-3, which would qualify as their best 12-game stretch of the season, the Flyers, who have 13 games left, would have to go 5-8. That would leave the Islanders with 89 points and the Flyers with 88. The Flyers would own any tiebreaker if the teams ended the season with the same amount of points, as they have dominated the season series winning five of six contests.
The two teams play each other two more times - Sunday, March 23 at Philadelphia and Saturday, March 29 at the Old Barn. If the Isles have any chance of grabbing that last seed, they need to win both games in regulation. There’s no other way. They simply cannot afford to lose any more ground to the Flyers.
To make the uphill climb even steeper, using the 9-3 scenario for the Islanders’ last 12 games, the team would still need Buffalo, Washington, and Florida to stumble. If the Isles finish with 89 points, they would need Buffalo to finish no better than 7-6 (for 88 points), Washington no better than 7-5 and Florida no better than 7-4. There’s a good chance that can happen but when you’re talking about the need for three teams to be no better than mediocre, one team, the Flyers, to be pretty bad, and the Islanders to be pretty damn awesome, the odds don’t look good. I wouldn’t take that bet. Would you?
The good thing is the Islanders are saying all the right things. Captain Bill Guerin told Newsday after yesterday’s loss “We’re making it a lot harder on ourselves. Is there enough time? Not a lot, but there’s time.”
Technically, he’s right. But it’s almost last call. No time to waste.
After a lost weekend at the Coliseum in which the Isles scored one lousy goal, the team finds itself five points behind the Flyers for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The Islanders, who are currently in tenth place, have 15 games left, one less than Philly and ninth place Buffalo. The Sabres have 71 points, two more than the Islanders.
It doesn’t look good but the lights ain’t out yet. But man did the Islanders lay an egg this past weeked or what? First, they fell to the Flyers 4-1, a game which was pretty much sealed when the Isles gave up yet another short-handed goal. Then on Sunday, after a pretty awesome ceremony marking the “Core of the Four,” the Isles went out and failed to put one of their 53 shots past backup Panther keeper Craig Anderson.
Here’s what some Islanders had to say after the game.
“I looked up at the scoreboard and I turned to Wade [Dubielewicz] and said, ‘I can’t believe we had 52 shots,” newest Islander Rob Davison told Newsday. Asked whether Davison had ever been on a team to register 52 shots that failed to win, he said “Absolutely not.”
Wait a minute, my bad. Davision didn’t say that after yesterday’s game. He said that after the Islanders pulled almost the same stunt and lost to the Penguins just last week after recording 52 shots. At least they scored two goals in that game. Yesterday - nada. 53 shots and no goals and a big loss. I hope this freak occurence ends here. One time is bizarre. Two is suspicious. Any more and we have a trend. The Islanders don’t need bad trends right now. They need goals and points in the standings.
For the season, the Islanders are tied with Columbus for the second-fewest goals in the league with 164. The Blues have the fewest with 161. The Islanders and the Blue Jackets share the worst goals-per-game ratios in the league, however, averaging just 2.44 tallies. The Blues average 2.47. If the season ended today, none of the three would make the playoffs. By contrast, Ottawa leads the league with 216 goals in 66 contests - a 3.27 goals-per-game average. On paper it doesn’t seem like such a huge difference but it is.
The Isles’ lack of scoring has been a major storyline all year. We’re not breaking any new ground but the fact remains, as we’ve said and as many others have said, this team isn’t going to win consistently until a little more firepower can be had. Maybe I need to revise that statement, and exchange “scoring’ for “firepower” because the shots have been coming lately. Shots are great. The Islanders need goals.
They needed four points over the weekend. They came away with zero. The clock is ticking.
Next up, a home-and-home series against the Rangers starting tomorrow night.
Well I guess I can stop worrying about the Isles scoring drought and start worrying about the team’s defense and hustle. Buffalo outplayed the Isles in every facet of the game last night, an observation I can make even though I spent half the night at the bar for my work holiday party. Came home and watched the game on DVR and was thankful for the fast forward button.
The thing that kills me about the game and a couple of other recent lousy performances, is that the success or failure of the Isles relies on team effort and execution more than anything else. You can say that about a lot of teams in this league but with the Isles it is even more important because they don’t dominate any one aspect of the game - no lightning quick ability to score, or to smother the other’s team’s offense. The Isles need to be the harder working team every night if they want a chance to win. They weren’t against Florida and Boston last week and they weren’t last night in Buffalo. The result, a 5-3 loss in a game they were never really in. Buffalo twice led by three goals and if not for some nifty saves by DP, could have led by more.
Coach Ted did not look happy at all. Here’s what he had to say to Newsday after the game:
“We can’t be behind 4-1 and expect to fight back and score five to win. We just need a better effort.”
“We’ve been pretty patient, giving guys all kinds of opportunities. But patience can only go so long. You have to produce, and you have to work hard. If you don’t maybe somebody else will.”
The latter quote may be a shot at Berard, who took a bad penalty and was late in getting into coverage on several Buffalo rushes. Berard’s ice-time for the game was just a paltry 3:29. Never good when one of your key defenseman logs less ice time than any of his teammates by a whopping six minutes.
That said, Berard wasn’t the only culprit. The Isles looked tired and uninspired for most of the night. They now sit all alone at the bottom of the Atlantic with 30 points, just one game over .500. Looks like it’s gut-check time on the Island. They get a chance to show what they are made of tonight against a mediocre Coyote team that just made the flight from Phoenix. It’s the Isles’ game to win. Let’s see how much they want it.
