PITTSBURGH — For the better part of the season, the Islanders have been a three-game winning streak away from forcing people to take them seriously in the playoff race.
They are going to have to reset the clock on that one after Sunday.
In their second match against the Penguins in 24 hours, with a chance to climb back to NHL-.500 and within touching distance of the playoff cutline, the Islanders fell flat in the form of a 3-2 defeat at PPG Paints Arena.
A 14-16-7 record after 37 games is, indeed, hard to take all that seriously as a contender.
So too is a team that cannot seem to string wins together, with just two sets of consecutive wins all year — neither of which was followed by a third.
Back-to-backs have been an issue going back multiple seasons for the Islanders, and Sunday was a familiar tale of the Isles looking sluggish and poor in their details after having played one night prior.
Both teams, at least, were in the same situation, with the Penguins and Islanders alike struggling to string passes together after a 6-3 Isles win over Pittsburgh on Long Island Saturday night.
A brutal second period in which the Islanders went scoreless on two power plays while compiling just four shots at five-on-five encapsulated the night, with Patrick Roy shifting his lines around to try and create some kind of spark.
Max Tsyplakov — demoted to the fourth line on Saturday night — went back to his usual spot on the second, while Simon Holmstrom and Anthony Duclair swapped places, but it didn’t change a thing.
Meanwhile, the penalty kill allowed its 14th goal in as many games, letting Michael Bunting get free in the crease to bang in Sidney Crosby’s feed.
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No. 87 received a standing ovation from the home crowd, as the assist meant he passed Mario Lemieux for the Penguins’ franchise record in the category.
It was just a 2-0 deficit entering the final 20 minutes, but given how the Islanders were struggling to break the puck out or do anything of note in the offensive zone, that felt like a mountain to climb.
After a second Penguins goal on the power play, this time with Philiip Tomasino banking the puck off Alexander Romanov and in at 6:56 of the third, it looked like the Islanders would be done and dusted.
They were not quite, with Anders Lee scoring a pair of goals at six-on-five to pull within 3-2 with 3:50 to go in regulation, but the Islanders could not find the tying goal they needed.
If there was a silver lining to be had, it was Marcus Hogberg’s performance in his first start in goal.
The Swede stopped 37 shots and wasn’t at fault for any of the goals, with the Islanders giving little help in front of a netminder who had not started an NHL game in nearly four years.
On the ice from Long Island
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What didn’t help matters, however, was the Islanders giving up a backdoor goal on the rush to old friend Anthony Beauvillier 3:54 into the game.
That put the Islanders on the back foot, and they would stay right there for much of the evening.
Really, that is where they are going to stay as long as it remains a Herculean task to win consecutive games — let alone three.
The state of the East means that poor as their record is, the Islanders are still lurking on the periphery of the race, still a winning streak away from becoming a real factor.
The state of the Islanders means that there is not much reason to think such a streak is imminent.
