Josh Bailey Frustrates Again in Islanders Loss to Washington

2021-2022 has been a confusing one for the New York Islanders. At times, it looks like they are finally going to snap out of their funk, and then they put out a clunker of a performance like they did against Washington yesterday.

It's frustrating but maybe the personification of the Islanders frustration is none other than the longest tenured Islander, Josh Bailey. Against the Devils on Thursday, Bailey and the Islanders looked good. He had a goal and an assist and was performing well even on the power play. Things were trending upward, or so we thought.

Yesterday, was the complete opposite. First, on the game winning goal in the first period, Josh Bailey was kind of caught in no mans land.

Both he and the youngster Robin Salo left Tom Wilson for Aliaksei Protas and well, it was all over at that point. It just seemed like a lack of communication between the guys out there on the ice. That unfortunately was only the beginning.

In the second period, the Islanders were on the power play. Unfortunately, something that happens entirely too often with Josh, he elected to pass instead of shoot at a wide-open net in front of him.

It's a head-scratcher. Bailey has 14 points in 25 games a pace of 46 points but it's the inconsistency that is the main issue. Bailey playing at around a 45-50 point pace is more than fine it's the frustrating stubbornness not to shoot the puck that is the issue for him.

Look, Bailey is Isles Twitter's whipping boy (sometimes to a fault) but there's no defending him right now. He's not good enough currently. From 2016-2017 through 2020-2021, Josh Bailey was a steady piece to the top-six, and he needs to get back to that form, fast.