This is what it looks like when the season slips away in January.
A disastrous second period, a total squandering of momentum, a team that played most of the night as though nobody was on the same page and a home crowd that sounded more disappointed than upset.
Forget the season. This might be what it looks like to watch an entire era of a franchise come to an end.
Just a week ago, Lou Lamoriello was putting an optimistic spin on his team’s playoff chances.
Now, after Thursday’s 5-3 defeat at home to the Flyers, the Islanders are nine points back of the last playoff spot in the East and just two points up on the last-place Sabres.
Technically, there still is a chance — nobody gets mathematically eliminated after 44 games, after all — but does this look like a playoff team to you?
Right now, it more closely resembles a situation in which keeping the core intact at the trade deadline will be simply untenable, barring a complete 180 over the coming weeks.
The Islanders have hoped against hope that this group still could contend for a Stanley Cup, but now they are closer to being a threat to win the draft lottery than a championship.
Like it or not, that is an objective fact.
After dropping the opening game of this homestand Tuesday — a loss that caused coach Patrick Roy to question his team’s hunger — the Islanders came out with some initiative Thursday and appeared to grab ahold of the game early when Max Tsyplakov laid out Ryan Poehling with a hard-but-legal hit that helped lead to the team’s first power-play goal in over a month.
On the ice from Long Island
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Not only did they hand the initiative back during a flaming wreck of a second period, but the Islanders’ hunger looked completely zapped as they gave up three straight goals — all of their own making.
Anthony Duclair’s blind pass from the wall to the middle of the ice coupled with poor play at the front of their own net allowed Sean Couturier to jam the puck in to tie the game at 1-all at the 5:15 mark.
Then, with the Isles on the power play, they gave their earlier special teams goal right back, allowing a shorthanded rush on which Noah Dobson failed to cover Garnet Hathaway for a 2-1 Flyers lead.
A few minutes later at even strength, the Islanders leaked another odd-man rush, this one after Adam Pelech was caught out of position, and Morgan Frost made it 3-1.
There was a brief moment of fight in the third period when Mat Barzal scored after just 30 seconds to cut the deficit to one.
But less than five minutes later, the Flyers struck right back when Cam York caught Ilya Sorokin out of position off a faceoff to bring it back to 4-2.
The Islanders got a late lifeline when Scott Laughton went in the box for cross-checking at 16:24 of the third, and Anders Lee made it 4-3 while skating at six-on-four, but that was as close as the Islanders got before Noah Cates’ empty-netter sealed a Philadelphia win.
This team can channel John Belushi in “Animal House” all it wants and say that nothing is over.
But the Islanders are what their record says they are, and they are where the standings say they are.
Right now, they are 17-20-7, the 15th-best team in the 16-team Eastern Conference and nine points from the playoff cutline.
Their playoff chances are dwindling toward zero in January, and after four years of hanging onto this core without a playoff series win, it sure looks like it’s time for the Islanders to face the consequences.
