two nights earlier on Long Island<\/a>. The result was a 4-1 defeat Monday night to the Capitals, who moved within two points of the Islanders for third place in the Metropolitan Division.<\/p>\nOver 56 games, themes have emerged on nights where the Islanders don\u2019t have it going, and they hit nearly all of them Monday. Too many one-and-done chances off the rush and too little time holding the puck in the offensive zone. Nothing on the power play. A couple of messy plays around the front of the net. It\u2019s familiar by now, though it\u2019s more than a little alarming to see it happen two games in a row.<\/p>\n
Afterward, the Islanders went to the refrain that they\u2019d played well and had plenty of chances, and the advanced stats backed them. The stats, though, didn\u2019t quite capture the way the wind went out of their sails once they went 2-1 down early in the second period.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor some reason it affected us,\u201d coach Patrick Roy said. \u201cIs it because we had a few good chances, didn\u2019t score on those? Maybe that affected us as well. We had a couple breakaways where we could\u2019ve got back in that game and their goalie made some good saves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Islanders react after the Capitals scored during their Feb. 2 game. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s home match against the Penguins, who sit two points above the Islanders in the standings after losing to Ottawa on Monday, feels particularly important now. The Islanders can only afford so much slippage before Friday, when the three-week Olympic break begins and the NHL gets a chance to take a deep breath.<\/p>\n
The Islanders had tossed away a 1-0 lead in the second period of this one, but with the score sitting at 2-1 Washington entering the third, things were far from over.<\/p>\n
After the Islanders killed off two consecutive penalties, it looked like they might even have a chance to seize some momentum.<\/p>\n
Instead, the Caps made it 3-1 after Nic Dowd threw a puck at the crease, which pinged off Tony DeAngelo before finding the back of the net at 8:48 of the period.<\/p>\n
Martin Fehervary (42) celebrates his goal during the Capitals\u2019 Feb. 2 win over the Islanders. Hannah Foslien-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
The Islanders did eventually have a semblance of a push, but it didn\u2019t come until Roy emptied his net with over five minutes to go. By then, it was too little and too late \u2014 and John Carlson\u2019s empty-netter extended Washington\u2019s lead to 4-1 before the Isles could make a game of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, honestly, we played pretty well,\u201d Bo Horvat, who had a pair of breakaways and converted neither, told The Post. \u201cI thought we carried the play pretty much the majority of the game. Had a couple breaks. Just unfortunate for us tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just like against the Predators on Saturday, the Islanders\u2019 best moments of the game came at the start. That was when they were most active below the hashes, holding pucks in the zone and creating havoc. It paid off at 16:38 of the first when Tom Wilson\u2019s pass from the corner went straight to Mathew Barzal\u2019s stick, and Barzal promptly deposited the gift of a turnover into the Washington net.<\/p>\n
The Capitals\u2019 frustration didn\u2019t last long though. Wilson fed Martin Feh\u00e9rv\u00e1ry for the 1-1 goal 5:29 into the second with Aliaksei Protas screening, and just 31 seconds later, old friend Anthony Beauvillier took advantage of what looked like a complete breakdown around the net to stuff the puck in at the right post for a Washington lead.<\/p>\n
The Capitals celebrate a goal during their win over the Islanders on Feb. 2. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n
In contrast, Roy was lamenting the lack of bodies toward the Capitals net, where Clay Stevenson was making just his third career NHL start.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s on us to be better, get more around their net,\u201d Jean-Gabriel Pageau said. \u201cTry harder to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOn the ice from Long Island\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Islanders by Ethan Sears, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Again and again, Roy keeps changing the lines and again and again, the best Islanders trio is the only one staying intact: the fourth line of Marc Gatcomb, Casey Cizikas and Kyle MacLean.<\/p>\n
The revamped top six that featured Barzal and Ondrej Palat on Bo Horvat\u2019s wings with Jonathan Drouin centering Emil Heineman and Simon Holmstrom had its moments \u2014 enough of them for Roy to say he was happy with the lines after the game. Self-evidently, though, it wasn\u2019t enough, and the same old problems aren\u2019t going away for the Islanders.<\/p>\n
Rather, it is more a question of whether they can work around them than whether they can solve them each night. If that doesn\u2019t change soon, the Islanders won\u2019t like the result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The parade of four-point games for the Islanders leading into the Olympic break started with a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":562596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,156530,405,403,1301,5226,5225,293,5228,5227,29956,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,3109],"class_list":["post-562595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-bo-horvat","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-nhl","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-patrick-roy","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-washington-capitals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116005070801462393","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}