Good Morning, Islanders Country.
There are few tasks as tall as beating a team in their first game with a new head coach. The Edmonton Oilers already hit their rock bottom this early season, leading to Kris Knoblauch making his NHL debut behind the bench Monday night. The Isles are quickly approaching their own version of it after a 4-1 loss, their fifth straight (0-4-1) as they fell below “hockey .500” for the season.
Mathew Barzal scored 40 seconds into the game. It was about as good a way to start a road trip. They didn’t score again. Tied 1-1 heading into the third period, we saw that their third-period woes aren’t bound by coasts or borders. After allowing just 13 shots through two periods, the Oilers peppered Ilya Sorokin with 19 in the third and converted twice on the power play.
“We're clearly under some adversity. We've come through it as a group before in an adverse situation in the past and found our way out of it, and that's all you can do. We stick together. We win as a team, we lose as a team, and we stay positive. We're doing a lot of good things. We're not getting the results.” - Lane Lambert
The Islanders are playing like a team that expects things to go wrong in the final 20 minutes. The effort may be there; they are playing hard, but no one is making a play to break the pattern. Instead, a bad penalty, a costly turnover, or a weak goal is what’s expected and what keeps happening.
As much as the team and coach try to talk about the good things they’re doing, they’re doing enough bad things to ensure the only results they’ll be getting are the same ones.
Coming up, Pierre Turgeon is inducted into the HOF, and Casey Cizikas tries to clarify his comments. Plus, Matt Martin is a rare healthy scratch, another fast road start, and Connor McDavid wasn’t the only player Kris Knoblauch coached in juniors on the ice for his NHL debut.
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