Good Morning, Islanders Country.
Vegas is a place where nights that feel destined for good results too often end with you losing and the house winning. The Isles had their chances to take hold of the game, but Kyle Palmieri was stopped on a breakaway, and Anders Lee hit a post. Instead of breaking through, defensive breakdowns turned the odds.
“We were good,” head coach Lane Lambert said. “And [made] a couple of mistakes. And it turned fast. I thought, but for about two-and-a-half, three minutes, it was maybe our most solid game of the trip.”
Sometimes you hear coaches say things like that and roll your eyes, especially after a 5-2 loss. However, if you stayed up to watch, you saw what Lambert saw - that the Islanders had more sustained pressure and consistent scoring chances in the first 37 minutes than they did in the prior three games.
A critical moment in the game occurred when Lambert rolled the dice and challenged Nicolas Roy’s goal that, made it a 3-1 game for goalie interference. "We saw his foot in the blue paint,” said Lambert. “We saw Ilya's mask up against his body, and so it was the right call for us to challenge that."
With the interpretation of goalie interference changing game to game, it was a 50/50 challenge that, if Lambert won, would have stalled Vegas’ momentum and given his team ample opportunity to come back in the third.
He lost, the Isles were assessed a penalty, and Jack Eichel scored on the power play 31 seconds after intermission. It was the right gamble with the wrong result.
Overall, it was a disappointing end to an underwhelming road trip where the team collected three of a possible eight points. The hope is that this tough stretch of games in January doesn’t get away from them the way Saturday night did, with two challenging home games against the Canucks and Leafs up next.
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