Bitter Rivalry Defeat

Isles drop fourth straight after 5-1 loss to Rangers

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Good Morning, Islanders Country.

Trailing 5-1 after two periods, during the 2nd intermission, Cal Clutterbuck said: “The only thing that's worse than losing is getting embarrassed.” The former 4th-liner and all-time NHL hit king was visibly agitated by his team’s performance against their biggest rival. We were, too.

Things didn’t get worse for the Islanders in the final 20 minutes, but the damage had already been done, and suddenly the hole they had worked so hard to dig themselves out of had now reached a familiar depth. A steep hill is getting steeper by the day after four straight games without a single point. The Isles are now seven points out of a playoff spot and have six teams in front of them with 25 games to play this season.

The Isles could’ve used Clutterbuck’s passion and physicality last night. The overall effort wasn’t embarrassing, but the result sure was, especially on home ice - leading to UBS Arena sounding more like MSG as the game continued.

To a man and the coach, the team felt that they did more good things than bad and that the 5-1 final wasn’t indicative of their performance. Some even thought that they outplayed the Blueshirts.

That’s a tough sell, no matter what the underlying stats say, and they say a lot.