One loss won’t completely halt the good feelings about the way the Islanders started the season. But a loss at home to the Coyotes, a tanking franchise whose only goal this year seems to be obtaining the top-overall pick, puts at least a temporary stop to the party. 

Instead of the Isles winning their eighth game in nine, they were vexed by Arizona in a low-event game, 2-0, on Thursday at UBS Arena to move their record to 9-6-0 and suffer their second shutout in four games. 

“We [have] gotta do a better job,” defenseman Noah Dobson said. “Grade-A chances, you gotta put a puck on net, get pucks through.” 

This was not a faster-paced, offensive natured game favored by coach Lane Lambert. It looked straight from the annals of the Barry Trotz era: slow, grinding and deliberate. The match went into the third period scoreless, with the teams combining for just 30 shots on net. 

The stats Lambert read aloud during his news conference, though, were the number of shots that failed to go on net: 23 attempts missed and 17 blocked, compared to just 24 times the Islanders forced Karel Vejmelka to make a save. 

“You can’t score if you don’t hit the net,” Lambert said. “That’s the bottom line.” 

Ilya Sorokin, who finished the night with 27 saves, played hero for the Islanders for a while including a highlight-reel double save on Nick Bjugstad to halt a Coyotes breakaway during the second period. But Sorokin could not stop Travis Boyd redirecting a cross-crease pass from Clayton Keller into the net on the power play a minute into the third period. Josh Bailey had gone off for holding in the dying embers of the second — a moment that turned out to be vital in swinging the game. 

And despite their recent third-period success in chasing down opposing leads, the Islanders didn’t have an answer for this one. 

Just as in the opening 40 minutes, the Islanders struggled to challenge Vejmelka, played sloppily with the puck in their own zone and missed the net too often when they did have chances to shoot. 

They did hit the post twice — Ryan Pulock in the second period and Matt Martin in the third, only a few minutes after Arizona had taken the lead. But for an offense that came into the game among the top 10 in scoring, this was not their night. 

The manifestation of this was Mathew Barzal, scoreless so far this season, missing an open net on a power play during the third period. That was the easiest moment to identify, but the Islanders had no shortage of missed shots to rue — Barzal missed the net five times, and so did Dobson and Pulock. 

“I try to score every game, I try to score every shift,” Barzal said. “As long as the play is there and the impact’s there, it’s tough to be frustrated. I just need one to fall. It’ll come.” 

Arizona’s Jack McBain added an empty-net goal with 30.5 seconds to go, putting the game out of reach for good. 

The upcoming schedule still looks good for the Islanders. Though they go on the road next week, they’ll see last-place Columbus at home on Saturday first, and the first leg of the trip will be a visit to the Atlantic Division cellar dweller, Ottawa. After that, they’ll see the Predators, who have struggled to gain a foothold this season. 

In other words, there is not much reason to get worked up about a single loss, even to Arizona — which has been a far more competitive outfit than expected thus far, and sits at NHL-.500 after Thursday. 

The Islanders did not do enough offensively to test Vejmelka, that much is plain to see, with a new set of line combinations from Lambert failing to gain much headway, as he reverted to the previous iteration of the top nine in the third. Still, the Isles came into the third period in position for another late win. 

If nothing else, perhaps the lesson is that is not as good a position to be in as it may seem.