Busy week catches up with Islanders in loss to Flyers

PHILADELPHIA – The Islanders were playing their fifth game in a Sunday-to-Sunday stretch and it showed in a 2-1 loss to the Flyers at Wells Fargo Center.

“We didn’t have a lot of juice,” coach Barry Trotz said. “We played OK but we didn’t execute when we needed to. We didn’t give up a lot of five-on-five chances. We didn’t generate enough and we passed up some looks. We were just not really sharp.”

The Islanders, who went 3-1-1 over the week, did take a 1-0 lead on Casey Cizikas’ blue-line shot through traffic at 12:50 of the first period. But the Flyers played strong defense around goalie Carter Hart the rest of the way.

“There wasn’t a ton of flow,” captain Anders Lee said. “There wasn’t a lot of pucks out there to make opportunities. It got clogged up.

“Overall, we didn’t have the pop we needed to pull out an extra one at the end.”

‘Catastrophic’

Kevin Hayes brought the Flyers into a 1-1 tie at 4:22 of the second period after Joel Farabee poked the puck off defenseman Sebastian Aho’s stick deep in the Islanders’ zone.

“We made sort of a catastrophic turnover for the first goal and then they scored on the power play,” Trotz said. “Other than that, we could be sitting here with being in overtime or whatever.”

Hayes’ power-play goal at 14:55 of the second period came after Kieffer Bellows hooked him in the offensive zone.

Penalized

Cizikas’ first-period hooking penalty was his seventh minor in seven games, including four in a 6-0 win over the visiting Blue Jackets on March 10.

“He’s involved,” Trotz said. “He’s not a guy that does a lot of reaching. He’s playing through people. It is a little bit strange that he’s getting a few more penalties the last little while.”

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.