TAMPA — The Islanders’ performance on Saturday brought to mind Cal Clutterbuck’s words on MSG’s postgame show Thursday night, after a similarly lacking performance against Vancouver.
“What’s surprising to me is [coach Patrick Roy] mentions details sort of in a passing way,” Clutterbuck, who played for the Islanders as recently as last year, said. “And I think this time of year, that’s what wins you hockey games.”
The Islanders teams that went to consecutive conference finals — which is to say the Islanders under Barry Trotz — were “detail-oriented,” Clutterbuck pointed out.
Forty-eight hours later, he looked prophetic.
The Islanders approached details on Saturday as if they had the talent and playoff odds of the Lightning, for whom the only jeopardy left is in their first-round opponent.
They finally showed up to put forth a valiant comeback effort in the third period, but a lacking first 40 minutes left the Islanders 5-3 losers to Tampa Bay on Saturday.
“It’s just little details,” Ryan Pulock said. “At times it’s just communicating, it’s talking it out, it’s finding your guy, it’s battling. Guys were working tonight. It was just little mistakes we were making.”
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Clutterbuck might have a future in this analysis thing.
With four straight defeats, the last two in regulation, one can officially say the Islanders are in trouble, the glow of a miniature three-game winning streak having worn off.
No one seems interested in grabbing hold of the last wild-card spot, so it’s not as disastrous as it could be.
Neither was the final score of this one, which looked on pace for a blowout before a third-period surge of Islanders scoring cut a 4-0 deficit to 4-3 over a three-minute span.
Pulock’s power-play goal — the Islanders’ first on the man advantage in over a week — gave the club some much-needed momentum, which they quickly built on.
Marc Gatcomb made it 2-0 at 7:47 of the third, with Tony DeAngelo following it up by slamming in a loose puck 60 seconds later.
A game that had been over — completely over — was suddenly very much on with over 10 minutes to go in regulation.
But the final goal that would have completed the miracle never came, with Jonas Johansson stuffing Bo Horvat at the crease with 1:59 to go in regulation before the Lightning killed out the game in the form of Jake Guentzel’s empty-netter.
“The guys are working hard. They were resilient,” coach Patrick Roy said. “I thought we played a really good game. I know I don’t have much to support what I’m saying in a way that we lost the game results-wise, but we did a lot of good things out there.”
The lack of give-up was admirable for the Islanders, but the lack of get-started did them in.
On the ice from Long Island
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The Islanders gave up three goals on Tampa’s first seven shots of the game, all three on preventable errors.
Pulock appeared to lose coverage on Nikita Kucherov off the rush, giving the best player on the ice a free look which he promptly buried.
Then Ilya Sorokin failed to secure a rebound, Noah Dobson and Alexander Romanov failed to get it out and Nick Perbix scored.
Brayden Point made it three after the Islanders lost track of him below the left circle, making it easy to slam in Ryan McDonagh’s pass.
These are mistakes that just can’t be made in Game 72 of a season.
“On the first goal, a bit of a change happening and we got caught in the middle,” Pulock said. “There was a scramble in front of the one goal [Perbix’s]. … Every [mistake] we made was in the back of our net.”
Point added a fourth Lightning goal at the end of the second, when Tampa got the Islanders going side-to-side off a delayed penalty.
In the last minute of the period, the Lightning might have just been looking to kill out the clock and start the third on the power play, but the Isles made it easy for Point to finish off Kucherov’s cross-ice feed.
Little details — and these particular ones ended up being decisive.
Just a week ago, the story was the Islanders summoning everything they had to give themselves one more run at the playoffs.
Now the question is whether they’re out of gas with miles still to go before the destination.
