Islanders generate little offense, lose to Kraken in shootout
Kraken left wing Tomas Tatar scores past Islanders goaltender Ilya Sorokin in a shootout at UBS Arena on Tuesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Islanders have plenty of time until their next game. But time is growing short on their season as they try to mount a playoff push.
Just 29 games remain after the Islanders lost 2-1 in a shootout to the Kraken, who snapped a six-game road losing streak playing on back-to-back nights, on Tuesday at UBS Arena. Tomas Tatar, in the second round, scored the lone shootout goal.
It leaves little time for missed opportunities and there were plenty in this one.
“We’ve got to start putting wins together,” defenseman Noah Dobson said. “There’s no time left to throw games away and we just have to find a way to dig deep here and go on a little run.”
The Islanders (22-18-13), who have lost two straight, are now idle until Sunday afternoon’s Stadium Series matchup against the Rangers — the rivals’ first meeting of the season — at MetLife Stadium.
“I don’t think any one of us could be happy about this performance,” said Patrick Roy, who dropped to 3-3-2 as Islanders coach. “We missed that opportunity. There was no excuse for not playing a better hockey game than what we did.”
It wasted a 29-save outing from Ilya Sorokin, who was particularly strong in the third period as the Islanders were outshot 11-5.
The Islanders were (dis)credited with 23 giveaways.
“We need to be better with that puck,” Roy said. “We need to make better decisions. The fans were [ticked] and I was also [ticked] because I thought we didn’t do a good job.”
“Every game is a playoff game,” said Bo Horvat, who took a team-high four shots and won 13-of-14 faceoffs but could not score on a two-on-one rush in the first minute of overtime. “Every game is do-or-die for us. We’ve got to be at our best every night. We’ve got to be better than we were tonight.”
Philipp Grubauer made 26 saves for the Kraken (22-21-10) — who lost 3-1 to the Devils on Tuesday night — as he returned from a lower-body injury that had kept him out since Dec. 9.
The Islanders’ penalty kill, just 9-for-17 in the previous six games, stopped both of the Kraken’s power plays, including Kyle Palmieri being called for tripping at 3:11 of overtime.
Palmieri brought the Islanders into a 1-1 tie with a power-play goal at 14:37 of the second period, getting to the crease for Mathew Barzal’s feed from behind the net as both extended their point streaks to six games.
It was seemingly in a must-win scenario for the Islanders given they don’t play again for five days. They are seven points behind the Flyers for third place — and a guaranteed playoff spot — in the Metropolitan Division and three points behind the Red Wings for the second wild-card spot.
The Kraken took a 1-0 lead at 5:27 of the first period as Matty Beniers took a stretch pass from Jared McCann.
Seconds earlier, defenseman Ryan Pulock shouldered Beniers hard into the left corner, leaving the Kraken center down in the Islanders’ zone. Former Islander Jordan Eberle confronted his ex-teammate and bottled up Pulock — borderline interference as it left Pulock out of position — as Beniers regained his feet and skated back into the play.
“I think it had some impact on it,” Pulock said.
The Islanders failed to capitalize on a four-minute power play after Andre Burakovsky high-sticked Jean-Gabriel Pageau at 14:24 of the first period.
Roy’s big lineup change — swapping left wings so Pierre Engvall skated on Horvat’s top line with Barzal and Anders Lee moved to Brock Nelson’s trio with Palmieri — lasted just three shifts into the first period.
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.
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