Islanders’ brutal offensive slog only gets worse in latest shutout loss

Life without Anthony Duclair in 2024 looks a lot like life without Anthony Duclair before 2024 for the Islanders.

Which is to say, it might be a slog around here for the time being.

The Islanders had stretches of this 1-0 loss to the Red Wings they could build on, whole periods they could point to as a model for how they want to play.

Defensively it was in no small part an excellent night.

But you can’t win without scoring goals.

And the Islanders, in their first game after Duclair went down injured, looked like a team that is going to struggle to score goals. Come to think of it, that’s how they looked in two of five games with Duclair, so maybe his absence not quite the problem.

Neither, really, is puck possession — which the Islanders had in droves on Tuesday.

Exactly what the issue is, after three shutouts in six games, doesn’t seem to be a question to which the Islanders have a ready answer.

“We dominated every department of the game,” coach Patrick Roy said after the Islanders held Detroit to 11 shots on net and somehow lost, marking the lowest shot total for the Red Wings in a victory since 1959. “So the only thing I wish we could have done better is get in front of the net for the screens and keep [doing] a good job making the goalie not see those shots.”

Is scoring a big-picture concern?

“I was hoping you didn’t ask the question,” Roy said. “Yes and no. Yes, you want to score every night. No, because I think eventually the puck will bounce our way. I’m a positive person. I think that eventually things will turn our way.”

For all their possession, the Islanders had just two high-danger chances at five-on-five all night. Alex Lyon made 29 saves, but didn’t work hard on enough of them.

The Isles have never been described as a high-end offensive team in recent years, but it took until Jan. 15 for them to be shut out for a third time last season.

There is not enough traffic in front, not enough forcing the goalie to move side-to-side, not enough deflections, tips or rebounds.

Patrick Kane’s opening goal 8:54 into the evening, one of the only high-danger chances Detroit had over 60 minutes, should not have been enough to win this game.

But it was.

“You give up [11] shots, you’re playing good hockey,” said an exasperated Anders Lee. “I don’t care — we played a solid hockey game tonight. I think that’s what’s frustrating. We played a solid hockey game, come away with nothing. Not even an OT [point] or anything.”

The gambit of putting Simon Holmstrom on the top line with Mat Barzal and Bo Horvat went much the same way as that move has in the past, with Holmstrom ceding too much to his linemates, looking unwilling to keep the puck on his stick or shoot it and the Islanders suffering as a result.

Still, the top line mainly came away from the night with the same takeaway as all the others: lots of possession, little to show for it.

The Islanders could not seem to generate any net presence on Tuesday, which rendered all their puck possession a little bit pointless.

There was some bad luck, to be sure — particularly on the power play, which looked more threatening than it had all year with revamped units on its first pair of opportunities and saw Brock Nelson hit the crossbar in the second period.

But when the Islanders got a third five-on-four chance late in the third, needing a goal, they could not so much as produce a shot.

The Islanders excelled at keeping the Red Wings from those same high-danger areas on the other end of the ice, shutting off open space and winning the puck back quickly. That did not stop Kane from ripping a one-timer past Ilya Sorokin off the rush for a 1-0 lead — on Detroit’s first shot of the game.

Still, if the Islanders play that well on the defensive end, they can survive this Duclair-less run and be better for it.

The scoring issues, though, look very real. And even when you play great defense, wins require goals.

The Islanders look like a team that doesn’t quite know where to find them.