Islanders missing in action with loss at Dallas

DALLAS — This was a no-show.

The Islanders were missing everything on Friday — offense, defense, goaltending, you name it. They fell behind quickly, made mistakes to make it worse, allowed their league-worst seventh shorthanded goal and were overall just bad in a 5-0 spanking by the Stars.

Jaroslav Halak nearly left the game after getting bumped by teammate Casey Cizikas midway through the first period. Halak stayed, but perhaps wished he hadn’t, given the ugliness still to come.

Ben Bishop turned aside just 14 Islanders shots for the shutout. Anthony Beauvillier blocked consecutive slap shots from Jason Spezza and Dan Hamhuis with his right leg and had to be helped to the locker room midway through the third period to add to the Isles woes, especially with a game on Saturday in St. Louis.

This one was over after a period. The Islanders were gifted a power play on a too many men minor to Dallas just 1:16 into the game and played just five seconds of the advantage before Anders Lee was sent to the box for tripping.

And 11 seconds into that four on four the Isles were behind. John Klingberg played keep-away for a bit, passed it off to Jamie Benn and Klingberg settled into an open spot in the faceoff circle to Halak’s left with no one near him.

Benn returned the puck to Klingberg, who blasted one over Halak at 1:32. The Islanders had just one shot on Bishop through the next 10 minutes, even through a power play, before the Stars capitalized on another mistake in the defensive zone from the Islanders, this time by their captain.

Dallas cycled the puck and got the Islanders chasing, but John Tavares appeared to have Gemel Smith in his sights directly in front of Halak. But Tavares drifted, Smith stayed and Alex Radulov fed a wide open Smith for an easy goal at 14:58.

Two minutes later it was Halak’s turn. Esa Lindell’s soft shot from the left point ticked off Andrew Ladd’s stick, but it didn’t appear to change direction enough to cause Halak to whiff on catching it.

The Islanders pressed to open the second after putting just four shots on Bishop in the first period, nearly getting on the board when Jason Chimera walked in alone and flipped a backhand that Bishop got a piece of. Tyler Seguin alertly swept the puck away from the goal line.

The Isles earned a power play but that only led to more misery. Josh Bailey tried a quick pass off the boards in the Isles end to Tavares, who wasn’t expecting the puck. Mattias Janmark was and he blasted one by Halak for a shortie at 6:54. Spezza added a power-play goal later in the second for a 5-0 deficit, the biggest hole the Isles had since opening night.

It was as bad, if not worse, than that opening-night dismantling in Columbus. The Isles came in having gone 6-2-1 in their last nine games while scoring at a high rate. They now have one goal in the last two games and headed off to face Western Conference-leading St. Louis on Saturday with a lot to fix.

Notes & Quotes: Alan Quine made his season debut after missing all of training camp following hand surgery. Doug Weight said Nikolay Kulemin (upper body) is now out indefinitely. “We should know more in the next 48 hours,” Weight said of Kulemin, who was injured in Tuesday’s overtime loss to the Oilers. “It doesn’t look great.”