Islanders fall to Kraken in shootout; losing streak hits seven

SEATTLE – Shootouts are a crapshoot, especially of the eight-round variety. So making grand declarations about a team’s direction after one seems a fool’s errand.

Suffice to say, the Islanders are, at best, treading water.

Their losing streak is now 0-4-3 after a 4-3, eight-round shootout loss to the Kraken on Thursday night at Climate Pledge Arena.

“It’s a lost point,” captain Anders Lee said. “But it’s not a lost hockey game in some ways.”

Still, it’s fair to wonder whether the inability to win and the consistent repeating of mistakes has put coach Lane Lambert’s job in jeopardy.

More penalty kill failures and bad penalties led to the shootout loss.

“It has to be high,” defenseman Noah Dobson said of the Islanders’ frustration/desperation level. “If you look at our last four or five games, we’ve had leads in all of them. A lot of them in the third period. We’ve got to find a way to get these extra points.”

The Islanders (5-6-5) conclude this four-game Western swing against the Flames on Saturday night.

The Islanders have been outscored 16-4 in the third period over their last nine games and their penalty kill has allowed 12 goals on 24 chances over the last seven games. The Kraken were 3 for 4.

Kailer Yamamoto scored the decisive goal in the shootout and Dobson could not keep the shootout going with the Islanders’ last chance as they dropped to 0-5 in games past regulation. It was the Islanders’ first shootout of the season.

“It’s not going our way at this time of the year,” said goalie Semyon Varlamov, who made 29 saves. “We just need to win one game and turn this thing around.”

Philipp Grubauer stopped 21 shots for the Kraken (6-8-4) – including a save on Bo Horvat going to the crease at 3:49 of overtime - with both teams coming off 4-3 overtime road losses on Wednesday night.

“You’d like to be sitting here with two points,” Brock Nelson said. “I think we did some good things. We just have to find a way to get one more (penalty) kill and/or generate a little bit more and we had a power play late.”

Dobson had given the Islanders a 3-2 lead at 1:48 of the third period with his power-play one-timer from the blue line through traffic, the Islanders’ second power-play goal of the game.

But Lee was called for slashing at 3:16 and Yamamoto’s power-play backhander at the crease tied it at 3-3 at 4:50.

The Islanders entered Thursday’s match with their penalty kill ranked 29th in the NHL at 37-for-52 (71.2%). Last season, the Islanders were eighth in the league at 82.2%, the third straight season the Islanders’ penalty kill was in the NHL’s top 10.

“Sometimes you’ve got to get kicked in the teeth,” Casey Cizikas said. “And I think that’s what’s happening right now.”

Way too predictably, the Kraken scored on both of their first-period power-play chances after Lee notched his first point in 11 games by redirecting Horvat’s feed for his own man-advantage goal as the Islanders took a 1-0 lead at 3:46 of the first period.

But Scott Mayfield swatted the puck into the netting for a delay of game and Matty Beniers tied it at 1-1 with a rising wrist shot to Varlamov’s short side from the left circle at 9:54. Mayfield went back to the box for slashing at 16:35 and Alex Wennberg, at the crease, made it 2-1 at 18:29.

Cizikas’ backhander at the crease off Mathew Barzal’s feed at 14:25 of the second period tied it 2-2.

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.