Islanders: Three Takeaways from Ugly 6-3 Loss in Pittsburgh

The New York Islanders left their goaltenders out to dry on Saturday night, and the Pittsburgh Penguins made them pay for it in a 6-3 rout.

It isn’t often the New York Islanders surrender six goals in a single game, but that’s just what happened on Saturday in the blue and orange’s 6-3 loss at the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Here are three takeaways from a mostly listless loss in Pittsburgh.

1. Islanders Continue Falling Behind Early, and it Cost Them Tonight

The Islanders have surrendered the game’s first goal in their last three games, and in five of their last six. In games past, they’ve been able to surrender a goal or two early, but ultimately come back to win, and if not, make something of a showing of the contest.

Indeed, the Islanders managed to make it a game again late Saturday night, as Jordan Eberle’s third period tally with two and a half minutes left in regulation cut the Pittsburgh lead to 5-3. But by that point, it was too little, too late.

While the Islanders have surrendered the first goal or two far too often recently, they’ve generally been able to stop the bleeding quickly enough to stay in striking distance. But going down 5-0 to the Penguins was always going to be a hole too deep.

To be fair to the Islanders, they really didn’t play a poor first period overall, in my opinion. They controlled the run of play, forechecked well, and had some decent scoring chances in the opening frame. It was in the details that the Isles looked a step behind in the first 20.

Nick Leddy and Casey Cizikas each had a share of blame on the Penguins first goal. Cizikas, playing the F3 role on the play as the last Islander forward to enter the offensive zone, fell down as the Penguins transitioned out of their zone. Moments later Leddy was caught flat-footed at the red line, allowing Sam Lafferty to blow straight past him and create an odd-man rush off a Colton Sceviour bump pass.

On the second Pittsburgh goal, an uncharacteristically sloppy line change by the Islanders third forward group gave way to a Penguins-controlled offensive zone entry. Fresh off the bench, Mat Barzal was able to harass Jared McCann just enough to cause a stumble, but Barzal couldn’t corral the momentarily loose puck, leaving it for McCann to feed a pass to Evan Rodrigues, whose shot Ilya Sorokin probably should’ve been able to save.

Indeed, the Islanders lost the first period in the details. Their overall effort wasn’t bad in the first 20, which came later in the second period. But for a team built upon a rigidly-structured system that emphasizes responsibility and attention to detail in all 200-feet of the ice, they certainly had a lot of lapses in exactly those key areas.

I don’t know why this team continues to struggle early in games, but it can’t continue to happen. The Islanders have been good about battling back from early deficits, but it’s no secret that this roster and system is not built to play from behind.

The Islanders are at their best when the opposition is forced to come to them and charge head-long into their stoutly defended blue line. That doesn’t happen if they are playing from behind. Barry Trotz needs to get his team starting games on time, because they’ve been an hour late to the action a lot of nights recently, and on Saturday it was closer to two hours late.

2. Michael Dal Colle’s Injury Presents a New Challenge to the Islanders Lineup

Michael Dal Colle is not a flashy player whose skill commands a large role on this Islanders team. No, Dal Colle’s game is one of sandpaper and determination. If you like players who bump and grind, go into the dirty areas with tenacity, and win puck battles, you probably should like Dal Colle.

And yeah, for as good a puck retriever as he is, and he is a good one, he lacks the skill to make plays happen when he succeeds in those retrievals. It’s a big downfall of his game, unfortunately. But, he’s shown he works well with several Islanders forwards this season, including Brock Nelson and Josh Bailey, staples of the Islanders second line.

Dal Colle was placed on IR before Saturday’s game against the Penguins, and in his absence, Kieffer Bellows was slotted onto that line with Brock and Bailey. Man, that line was horrendous. Easily the Islanders worst line of the four they rolled.

In total shot attempts, the Bellows – Nelson – Bailey line were beat 6-4 on the night. Not bad, very low-event, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Take blocked shots out of the equation and the Penguins advantage here grows slightly, to 5-2. Still, not really bad, underwhelming, and dull? Sure, but not terrible. Other Islander lines did better here, but that isn’t the end of the world.

It’s the shot locations that were the problem. Dig into the Penguins xG numbers from Saturday’s game, and you see that 0.66 Penguins 5v5 expected goals came against the Nelson line exclusively. For some context, the second-worst Islanders line in the xGA department was J.G. Pageau’s, with .19 5v5 xGA.

Making matters worse, the Nelson line’s xGF was only .05, which is again the worst on the team by a fair margin. In total, the Nelson line took home 7% of the expected goal share. Adjusting those numbers to account for score and venue doesn’t offer a prettier view, as in that case the line only took home a slightly less atrocious 9% of the xG share at 5v5.

Keep in mind, the Nelson line put up those numbers as a group that was exclusively deployed in the offensive and neutral zones on Saturday night. They didn’t take one defensive zone faceoff all night, and still only managed 9% of the expected goals share.

Obviously, this is one poor group performance among a slew of others from the Islanders on Saturday night, but the numbers on this one illustrate it as being particularly ugly. That’ll have to be worked out. I know a lot of people on this site love Kieffer Bellows, and I do too, but the Nelson line hasn’t performed that poorly in a while, and it coincided with his placement there.

If I’m Barry Trotz, I give this line a chance to redeem itself on Monday, but with a very short leash. If it starts going south again, I quickly swap Bellows and Anthony Beauvillier or Leo Komarov to try and salvage the remainder of the game. If that doesn’t work, well, that’s why the Islanders should be buyers at the April 12 trade deadline, right?