TAMPA, Fla. — The Islanders keep on running into different versions of the same fundamental problem, best illustrated by the fact that they are now guaranteed to lose more games than they win this season.
There is no head coach, line combination or strategy that can make up for a group of players which cannot tap into its best with anything resembling regularity.
That does not mean the Islanders can’t make the playoffs, since their main competitors in the masochistic wild-card race all appear to have the same issue.
But Loss No. 42 on Saturday, 4-1 to the Lightning in a game that saw the visitors put forth an inconsistent-at-best effort, felt like something of a clarifying moment.
Sporting forward lines that included Mathew Barzal, Bo Horvat and Brock Nelson all anchoring their own trios in the name of balance, the Islanders did find that at the game’s start.
All four lines struggled equally.
The Lightning were faster.
The Lightning were crisper.
The Lightning won more of their battles, managed the puck better and did pretty much everything else better, too.
In the first period alone, Tampa more than tripled the Islanders’ shot count.
“Could’ve been 4- or 5-1 after the first,” Kyle Palmieri said. “But we had an opportunity to get back in the game.”
Thanks mostly to the efforts of Semyon Varlamov — who was up to the task in making 36 saves during a game that turned into a duel with Andrei Vasilevskiy at times — the Islanders got to the third period facing just a 2-1 deficit.
There was a semblance of offensive momentum as well after coach Patrick Roy had abandoned his original lines, returning Pierre Engvall to play with Nelson and Palmieri while Casey Cizikas played on Barzal’s left wing alongside Hudson Fasching, and Jean-Gabriel Pageau lined up between Anders Lee and Horvat.
But the Islanders’ own inconsistencies, combined with the difficulty of getting pucks by Vasilevskiy, was too much to overcome.
“We know where we are and we know we need to win games,” Roy said. “And offensively maybe we need to be a little bit better and if we want to score more goals, that’s it.”
Just 21 seconds into the third period, the Lightning extended their lead, with Steven Stamkos deflecting in Emil Lilleberg’s shot from the left point — a goal confirmed following a review for high-sticking — to take the air right out of the Islanders’ balloon.
Instead of a push, the next 19:41 featured the same scattered offense that has become the norm lately, depending more on rush chances than anything sustained.
All that produced was an early pull of Varlamov, which led straight to Anthony Cirelli’s empty-net goal.
“Some nights aren’t gonna be long zone time, in the zone nights,” Lee said. “Sometimes they’re gonna be off the rush and vice versa. Sometimes we have nights where we’re gonna be in our D-zone maybe a little bit long, [take] shots from the perimeter. Sometimes opportunities come off the rush. Not every game’s the same.”
This was certainly one of those nights.
Palmieri had put the Islanders ahead on their first shot of the game, throwing a puck at the net that deflected off Matt Dumba and in.
But constant pressure by the Lightning quickly laid waste to the idea that the lead would last, as Darren Raddysh and Cirelli scored within 35 seconds of each other — the former on the power play — to hand Tampa a deserved lead at the 15:00 mark.
They never let it go.
As has been the reality since mid-January or so, the Islanders’ inclusion in the playoff race is due more to factors out of their control than anything relating to their own play.
None of the Flyers, Capitals and Red Wings — their main competitors — have more wins than losses either, and the best result any of the three recorded Saturday was a shootout loss.
Somehow, despite themselves, the Islanders will have a chance to move three points behind the Flyers with two games in hand by beating them on Monday night.
But even in a playoff race of this low caliber, getting in will require better than the Islanders have shown.
Saturday was just the latest evidence.
