Islanders vs. Canadiens preview: Isles treating every game as crucial in race for playoffs

The opponent doesn’t dictate must-win games. The time of the season does that.

And, for the Islanders, gaining two points at every opportunity is crucial with five weeks to go in the regular season.

The Islanders play the first of their three ever remaining games at Barclays Center against the Canadiens on Tuesday night. The Canadiens are on the barest fringe of the Eastern Conference playoff race and dealt sniper Ilya Kovalchuk to the Capitals a day before the Feb. 24 NHL trade deadline.

“You have to have every game,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. “There are no have-to-have games. Every game is a have-to-have game. If you win it, you move on. If you lose it, you move on. You just have to have the mentality that every game is the most important game of the year until the dust settles after Game 82 and you see where you are.”

The Islanders hold the East’s first wild-card spot and are two points behind the third-place Penguins in the Metropolitan Division.

“I think you can look, or you cannot look, everybody’s different,” Cal Clutterbuck said of the standings. “It affects everybody differently. The main thing, having been through this a bunch of times now, it’s about controlling what you can control and making sure you’re prepared to do the job that you need to do. The luxury is we put ourselves in a position to handle that ourselves. The focus has to be going out and doing that.”

Both Clutterbuck and captain Anders Lee will be in Tuesday’s lineup after missing Monday’s practice in East Meadow for personal reasons. Lee and his wife, Grace, had their first child, a daughter, on Monday.

The Islanders are still without Casey Cizikas (left leg laceration), who has yet to resume skating, and they are just 2-5-2 since losing their identity-setting center.

They have been shut out three times in those nine games, including Saturday’s 4-0 loss to the NHL-leading Bruins at NYCB Live’s Nassau Coliseum. That extended the Islanders’ losing streak to three games (0-1-2).

“It’s putting together complete games,” Lee said. “We’ve been good in spurts. We’ve been good in 40 of 60 [minutes]. Putting a complete effort, night in, night out, is what we have to do. It’s not going to be easy with this stretch. We have to have that playoff mentality from the get-go. We’ve been working on getting there.

“Tonight’s a perfect opportunity to fix that and get back on track here against a team that’s hungry, just like we are,” Lee added.

The Islanders admittedly did not have a 60-minute effort in a 4-2 loss at Montreal on Dec. 3 as the Canadiens scored the first three goals that night to snap an 0-5-3 skid.

The Canadiens concluded a 1-1-1 homestand with a 4-3 overtime win over the Hurricanes on Saturday. Max Domi is a riding a five-game point streak for the Canadiens, with four goals and three assists in that span.

The Islanders have just three, five-on-five goals over their last three games and their power play was 0-for-6 against the Bruins.

Derick Brassard, who will center Clutterbuck and Matt Martin on the fourth line, has gone seven games without a point. Mathew Barzal, who had a five-game assist streak snapped on Saturday, including three straight two-assist games, has gone 13 games without a goal. He has one goal in his last 21 games. Anthony Beauvillier has gone four games without a point and six games without a goal. Michael Dal Colle has gone 12 games without a point.

“I’d like to see our whole team put more pucks in the net,” Trotz said. “We need everybody to contribute. I can go up and down the lineup. If we have a consistent five-on-five game, we’re going to be in the game and then the difference makers are your special teams.”

Here are the projected lineups

Islanders (35-21-8)

Anders Lee-Mathew Barzal-Jordan Eberle

Anthony Beauvillier-Brock Nelson-Leo Komarov

Michael Dal Colle-Jean-Gabriel Pageau-Josh Bailey

Matt Martin-Derick Brassard-Cal Clutterbuck

Andy Greene-Ryan Pulock

Devon Toews-Scott Mayfield

Nick Leddy-Johnny Boychuk

Thomas Greiss (16-8-3, 2.65 goals-against average, .916 save percentage)

Canadiens (30-28-9)

Tomas Tatar-Phillip Danault-Brendan Gallagher

Artturi Lehkonen-Nick Suzuki-Joel Armia

Paul Byron-Max Domi-Jordan Weal

Charles Hudon-Jake Evans-Dale Weise

Ben Chiarot-Shea Weber

Brett Kulak-Jeff Petry

Xavier Ouellet-Christian Folin

Carey Price (26-23-6, 2.76, .910)

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.