PHILADELPHIA — The Islanders’ recent run of good form had to end at some point. 

Sunday afternoon against the Flyers, in a game where Cal Clutterbuck and Andy Greene were held out of the lineup — which the Islanders insisted was for maintenance, but certainly looked like asset protection with the trade deadline on Monday — was as good a time as any for the results to start aligning with the team’s gloomy outlook yet again. 

The Flyers dropped the Islanders, 2-1, dropping their record to 26-25-9, preventing them from sweeping the season series, and snapping a six-game points streak for the visiting team. 

The Islanders had played some of their best hockey of the season — and gotten some of their best results — going into the contest. But Ilya Sorokin’s 35 saves couldn’t belie a performance in which the Flyers outshot their visitors, 37-27, as the Islanders were kept out of the offensive zone for long stretches and reverted to old mistakes. 

“We didn’t have a lot of juice tonight, plain and simple,” coach Barry Trotz said. “Mentally, we just didn’t have the juice.” 

A pair of Kevin Hayes goals in the second period epitomized those mistakes. The first, at 4:22 of the period, came following a giveaway from Sebastian Aho deep in the Isles’ defensive zone, setting up an easy two-on-one for Hayes to convert on a feed from Travis Konecny. 

The second, 10 minutes later, came on the power play following a Kieffer Bellows hook — the third of four penalties the Islanders committed in the game — when a loose puck bounced Hayes’ way and he put it into the net. 

“We had a turnover on the first goal and they got a power-play goal,” Trotz said. “We didn’t generate enough. We passed up some looks and we were just not really sharp.” 

Casey Cizikas started the scoring with a slap shot from the top of the zone at 12:50 of the first period that made its way past Carter Hart. 

But after a strong first period, in which the Islanders passed the puck crisply on breakouts and generated chances, they started to look more like a team that was playing for the fifth time in eight days. Needing a goal in the third period, the Islanders failed to put the requisite pressure on Hart in the Flyers’ net, and came away empty-handed. 

“Just wasn’t one of those games where it was coming easy,” Anders Lee said. “There wasn’t a lot of pucks out there to make opportunities.” 

The focus now turns to Monday. Clutterbuck and Greene aren’t expected to yield a massive haul if moved, but both could be of some use to playoff teams. If president Lou Lamoriello decides to move more pieces — in particular, Semyon Varlamov or Josh Bailey, both of whom have multiple years left on their deals — the Islanders can expect a greater return. 

The team’s performance against the Flyers, if nothing else, served as a hefty dose of reality. 

This season will soon be thrown into the trash heap of history. How the Islanders approach the deadline, though, will dictate much of what they can get from it.