MONTREAL — So far, this is the season of one step forward and two steps back for the Islanders.
Even though the team’s current goal of treading water until getting healthy is as modest as it gets, stacking a couple wins is still necessary to get back to NHL .500 — and it is something the Islanders have struggled to do again and again.
There are no easy games, so goes the cliché, but Tuesday night against the Canadiens, who sit at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, was about as good a chance as the Islanders could have asked for to build on Saturday’s win over Buffalo.
Instead, they’re flying home as 2-1 losers on Nick Suzuki’s overtime winner after another lackluster third period, though at least this one wasn’t a blown lead.
“It sucks,” said Bo Horvat, who blocked Suzuki’s initial shot with his skate before the puck bounced back to Suzuki, who potted it 2:39 into overtime. “I think I was in the right spot to get the rebound and it just took a s–tty hop on me and ended up in the back of our net.”
The defense-first, forecheck-heavy and low-event hockey that the Islanders have regularly played of late might be a necessity with Mat Barzal and Anthony Duclair, two of their best offensive players, among the injured. But it has sometimes left them looking like a team without many ideas for how to score, and Tuesday fell into that category.
It didn’t help matters that Canadiens goaltender Sam Montembeault put on a show in front of the biggest Habs goaltending legend of all, Patrick Roy, finishing with 30 saves.
With the Islanders looking for a goal on a second-period power play, Montembeault stoned Brock Nelson on consecutive chances in tight.
He then dove to make a save on Max Tsyplakov and somehow snared the rebound from Jean-Gabriel Pageau. All that was missing was a wink to the camera.
Anders Lee finally got one by Montembeault at the 18:55 mark of the second off his own rebound, tying the game at one heading into the third.
Even with a tied score in the third, though, the Islanders played armadillo hockey — curling into a ball and hoping to avoid any damage.
That’s a hard way to win a game, but that lesson doesn’t appear to have been learned. And any notion that the Islanders would be more confident in the final 20 minutes after hanging onto a lead Saturday went by the wayside.
Nearly the entire third period was spent in the defensive zone, and though the Islanders limited shots against, they did not give themselves much of a chance to take control.
“Sometimes teams pressure you,” Simon Holmstrom said. “You gotta do your best to defend it. I thought we did a good job. We didn’t really let them get a whole lot of high-danger scoring chances, but still, we gotta push back.”
The loser point keeps them a game below NHL .500, but what kind of silver lining is that when the Islanders needed to bank two points against a basement-dwelling opponent?
Ilya Sorokin, strong all night, stretched out to deny Mike Matheson at three-on-three, but the Islanders failed to take advantage as Suzuki scored shortly afterward.
There was little action in the early goings of this one, with the loudest Bell Centre roars reserved for Patrik Laine, playing his first game as a Canadien, instead of Patrick Roy, returning here for the second time as coach of the Islanders.
Laine ripped a shot past Sorokin on the power play for a 1-0 lead at 7:23 of the second, receiving a standing ovation from a typically loud Montreal crowd in return.
The special teams deficit in this one did look more like a matter of great goaltending on the other side and Laine making a fantastic play than anything else.
But it is still all too familiar a story for the Islanders.
Even Roy, usually as optimistic as they come, could acknowledge that.
“I thought their goalie made some good saves [on the power play],” he said. “I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot lately. We need to find a way to put that thing behind the goal line.”