Bo Horvat on Islanders' effort against Buffalo: 'We should be embarrassed' 

Bo Horvat held court in a quiet and mostly empty dressing room a few minutes after 10 P.M. Monday.

He stood in front of a small semicircle of reporters after he and his Islanders teammates spent two-and-a-half-hours being outclassed by the NHL’s 30th-best team, the Buffalo Sabres, as increasingly irate catcalls rained down upon them by the announced 17,255 in attendance at UBS Arena over the course of the game.

Their fury was matched by Horvat when the 7-1 rout was over.

“It was not a good game. We should be embarrassed,” was how Horvat began his postgame question-and-answer session. “Just an unacceptable effort by us tonight.”

A clearly incensed Horvat used the descriptors “embarrassed” and “unacceptable” three times during his scrum, and said the word “inexcusable” once.

Frustration, thy name is Bo.

Along with his ire at how he and his teammates performed, Horvat was irritated because the Islanders had an opportunity to reinsert themselves into the Eastern Conference playoff race had they defeated the Sabres.

Entering the game, the Islanders’ 33 points were tied with the Rangers, who had been thoroughly eclipsed by the Devils, 5-0, in a matinee at the Prudential Center.

Had the Islanders won, they would have had 35 points, putting them three behind Ottawa for the second Wild Card spot in the East with 47 games left to play. Not a bad position to be in.

Instead, when they reconvene following the NHL’s Holiday pause, the Islanders will find themselves in last place in the Metropolitan Division and 13th in the conference.

The Islanders are closer in points to last-in-the-conference Buffalo (28) than they are to front-running New Jersey (49).

“We got a lot of work ahead of us. It’s not going to be an easy run. It’s not going to be an easy road to get back to where we want to get but we have no one to blame but ourselves. We put ourselves in this situation, obviously,” Horvat said. “It wasn’t good tonight.”

Ironically, prior to the loss to the Sabres, Horvat had been playing well as he had recorded eight points (four goals and four assists) in the seven games the Islanders played between Dec. 5 and Dec. 21.

And for the season, he ranks fourth on the team in goals (nine), first in assists (16), tied for second in points (25), tied for first in game-winning goals (two), third in shots (96), second in faceoff winning percentage (59.2%), and sixth in average ice time per game (19:57).

“He’s been shooting the puck free,” Patrick Roy said during his availability following the morning skate at Northwell Health Ice Center Monday. “I feel like it’s a good fit for him playing with [Maxim Tsyplakov and Simon Holmstrom on the third line]. It works well.”

Why does it work well?

Roy believes the individual skill sets of the forwards on the four lines complement each other, specifically pointing that Horvat likes “give-and-gos” whereas Mathew Barzal “loves to skate with that puck” in the neutral zone.

Roy’s theory of the case was echoed by Anders Lee.

“When you’re able to roll four — and all four lines were making progress [in last Saturday’s 6-3 win over the Maple Leafs in Toronto] and controlling play and having good [offensive zone] shifts —it is easier to build off of that,” the captain said.