Islanders were embarrassed at home in a historic way by the Buffalo Sabres

There were many reasons for the New York Islanders to be embarrassed by their 7-1 defeat to the Sabres on Monday night at UBS Arena. The Sabres had been winless in their previous 13 games (0-10-3), and the Islanders were playing in front of a sellout holiday-week crowd. Their captain, Anders Lee, said the team played like "garbage from the get-go," while Bo Horvat said the loss was "inexcusable." They also were on the receiving end of something that hadn't happened in Isles history.

The Islanders trailed 2-0 after the first and 5-1 after the second before losing 7-1. That's not the worst loss in Islanders' history; last season, they lost 7-0 to the Pittsburgh Penguins on home ice. Back in 2012-13, the Philadelphia Flyers also shut out the Isles 7-0. However, this loss was unique compared to the previous blowout defeats at home.

According to statistician Eric Hornick in The Skinny, last night was the first time in Islander history that they were outscored by multiple goals in each period in a home game. It has happened nine previous times (most recently February 25, 2017, in Columbus), all on the road.

The loss was somewhat shocking on a few levels. First, the Islanders were coming off one of their better games of the season on Saturday in Toronto and were going to play in front of their home fans with a healthy roster for the first time since October. Plus, in addition to the Sabres 13-game winless streak, the Islanders had been dominant at home against Buffalo in recent years. Monday's loss was only the second time in the last 15 home games (13-2-0) that the Isles fell to the Sabres.

"This will stick with us for a few days. We don't have an opportunity to go back tomorrow," said Lee after the game. "We don't have an opportunity to play another game quickly. It'll stick and it'll burn. We had an opportunity tonight to play a good hockey game and build off of what we did in Toronto, and we didn't do that at all.”

It will stick for the players for a few days and likely stick around in the history books for dubious reasons long after that.