Islanders failing eye test of being a contender

Across the river to the west, the Rangers’ problems are being played out in the public eye, starting with the awkwardly unintentional — or intentional — reveal that general manager Chris Drury wanted to shake up his dressing room and the resulting predictable, negative fallout from that.

So, say this about Islanders president/general manager Lou Lamoriello, he still has the force of will to keep any and all discontent in-house. But, make no mistake, the Islanders, just like their New York rivals, are on the precipice of having their season fully implode.

They’ll bring a two-game losing streak into Saturday night’s match against the Maple Leafs, who are contending for first place in the Atlantic Division, to conclude a three-game road trip. The trek opened Sunday with a 5-3 loss in Chicago to a team with the fewest points in the NHL. Tuesday’s 4-0 loss to the Hurricanes was their largest margin of defeat this season and the fifth time they’ve been shut out.

The trade deadline is March 7. Two of their top six forwards — Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri — are pending unrestricted free agents. Without a turnaround, decisions will need to be made sooner rather than later if Lamoriello is going to be a seller.

Yet Wednesday’s standings showed the Islanders, at 12-14-7 (which, read correctly, is just 12 wins in 33 games) only three points out of the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot, tied with the Rangers with 31 points.

“We’re fortunate to still be in the mix,” Nelson said. “There’s a lot of hockey left. We aren’t happy where we’re at. We know we can be better and want to be better.”

But the eye test says they are not a legitimate contender. In many games, the Islanders don’t generate enough scoring chances. In other games, such as the loss to the Hurricanes, the Islanders can’t finish their chances. Their power play and penalty kill are both ranked last at 32nd in the NHL. They’ve had trouble protecting leads in the third period. They’ve had trouble getting leads in the first period as they’ve now allowed the first goal in eight straight matches. They often can’t match their opponents’ speed.

And while Mathew Barzal and defenseman Adam Pelech are back in the lineup — the Islanders are 0-2-0 since they’ve returned  — and Anthony Duclair is on the verge of resuming play, there’s still no word on when goalie Semyon Varlamov will be available. He’s missed nine games with a lower-body injury and Ilya Sorokin has started to show the wear of nine straight starts.

He was pulled after allowing four goals on 23 shots against the Hurricanes, the fourth straight game he’s allowed four goals. And while Sorokin is not the problem as the Islanders have failed to protect his crease, he hasn’t been the game-saving solution the Islanders desperately need either.

But even while the fan base and media have formed definitive ideas about the state of the Islanders, give the team this: They still believe.

“Every game you go in with a mindset and you have an opportunity to do something,” Casey Cizikas said. “It can be frustrating at times but you’ve just got to keep going forward with it and clean up those mistakes that are costing us.”

But can they? Of all the questions surrounding the Islanders, that is the most important one.

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.