The Islanders wouldn’t be wrong to say they ran into a pair of hot goalies in their two losses over a three-game road trip that finished in St. Louis on Thursday night.
But being shut out twice in three games — while exploding for six goals in the lone victory of the trip — raises a potential issue nonetheless.
This version of the Islanders, with Anthony Duclair completing the top line and Max Tsyplakov filling out the top six, is meant to have an easier time putting the puck in the net than prior seasons.
That wasn’t how it played out against the Blues, when the Isles squandered a fair number of third-period chances before losing 1-0 in overtime.
And it wasn’t the case in Dallas last Saturday, either, when Jake Oettinger stymied them in a 3-0 Stars win.
“Maybe [we need] a little more poise offensively,” coach Patrick Roy said Thursday night. “Hold on pucks. We kind of move the puck a little faster than we should. We should look for options. … That’s what maybe we could’ve done a bit better, but both teams played very well. Both teams played very well defensively.”
That was as far as Roy was willing to go in terms of constructive criticism related to his team’s goal scoring and, in fairness to him, on the two nights the Islanders have avoided being shut out, they’ve combined to score 10 goals.
So perhaps the issue is more one of inconsistency than an overall lack of production.
“I think at times when we simplify, we get a little more done and I thought there were times throughout the game when we had some looks,” Ryan Pulock said. “I think it’s something we need to be a little more consistent at, is generating some more sustained pressure offensively.”
According to the advanced stats, the Islanders have generated sufficient pressure, recording 11 and 10 high-danger chances at five-on-five in their two shutout losses, respectively, by Natural Stat Trick’s count. The third period against St. Louis, certainly, featured a number of grade-A chances around the crease that the Islanders couldn’t convert.
“A couple ones, I just couldn’t believe they didn’t go in,” Roy said, later citing a Duclair chance around the crease with about two minutes to go that was somehow kept out by Blues netminder Joel Hofer.
“Don’t know what you guys saw, but that’s how it felt,” Jean-Gabriel Pageau said. “Good chances from both sides. … We had our looks and we were not able to capitalize.”
That may be the case at five-on-five, but the power play — an abysmal 1-for-10 so far, with the only goal coming on the first opportunity of the season — at least appears to be an area at which it’s tougher to shrug your shoulders and say the chances are there.
The Islanders were given consecutive chances at five-on-four in the second period Thursday, which could have flipped the game in their favor, but instead struggled to even enter the offensive zone, let alone generate chances.
Roy tried mixing up his second unit a bit, playing Simon Holmstrom in place of Pageau, but that didn’t meaningfully change the result.
The conversation after the loss, though, was more focused on five-on-five, and how the Islanders could convert the chances that were in front of them.
“I think it just comes down to bearing down,” Noah Dobson said. “Whenever you have that good chance, gotta find a way to put it in. Obviously, Dallas a great goaltender, tonight the goalie played great as well. But when we have those chances, we gotta find a way to capitalize.”