Krak Down

Isles finish "just okay" road trip with 4-1 loss in Seattle

Isles Fix Giveaway: We’ll be selecting one PAID subscriber as the winner of the new “Schaefer Hockey: The Long Island Skating Co.” tee, inspired by the famous Schaefer Beer Logo.

Good Morning, Islanders Country.

When the Islanders boarded that plane two weeks ago without Bo Horvat, the bar wasn’t set very high. You didn’t ask for miracles. You didn’t even ask for momentum. You asked for survival. Come back still in a playoff spot. Don’t dig a hole. Don’t let the trip define the season in the wrong way.

Mission technically accomplished.

And yet, walking away from a 3-3-1 road trip, it somehow feels… unsatisfying.

That’s what happens when the ending spoils everything.

For six games, the Islanders did an admirable job of not letting the length of the trip chew them up. Long flights. Weird start times. Hostile buildings. No Horvat. They played survive-and-advance hockey and, more often than not, survived. They even stole a couple of headline wins — Edmonton, Minnesota — the kind of results that make you think this team might actually be onto something.

But on Wednesday night in Seattle, after the red-hot Anthony Duclair got things started and perked you up for another late night of hockey, the Islanders looked like a team that couldn’t wait to get back to Long Island. The legs were gone. The details were gone. It wasn’t dramatic. It was dull. It was listless. A 4-1 loss and effort at Climate Pledge Arena that was completely forgettable.

“Average,” Ryan Pulock called the road trip. That might’ve been generous. “I thought we had a chance tonight to win a hockey game and go home with a pretty decent trip. Losing tonight, I think it was just okay.”

That sums it up too well.