Good thing there are 82 games in a season.
Last November, the Isles went 3-9-0-2 for the month, signaling the beginning of the end for that dreadful team. This year’s edition, though they may expect considerably more, are on pace to continue that tradition on Long Island, mired in an 0-4-1 slump through their last five.
The upstart darlings of the young NHL season have gone almost two weeks without a win and the losses are starting to pile up and smell worse and worse. The most recent hit and run came at the hands of the Coyotes, who embarrassed the Isles (11-5-2-1) in a 6-1 rout Saturday night in the desert.
“I don’t think anyone was happy with the whole 60 minutes,” head coach Peter Laviolette said after the Phoenix loss. “It happened that we didn’t play well. Ultimately, it’s my responsibility for this team to be ready to go and understand our systems. I accept full responsibility. We have to learn from this and move on We got beat in a lot of areas. We have no excuse.”
And just when the Isles could use a break, they’ll travel to Dallas today to take on the Stars (7-6-4-3), who are licking their chops at the thought of avenging their 2-1 OT loss to the Isles last month, though it seems like decades ago.
After that game, captain Michael Peca said that maybe Dallas could use the Islanders as a measuring stick to see how the Stars measure up. Today, the roles have been reversed, with the Isles, yet again, looking to put an end to this five-game skid.
“Show me a successful team that hasn’t gone through what we’re going through right now,” Laviolette said. “What we deal with together will make us stronger in the long run.”
Tonight, against one of the meanest and more dangerous teams in the league, the Isles will try to get it back on track, no easy challenge for a team that has yet to rise to the occasion on this five-game road trip.
“There will be times like now where things aren’t going well,” Peca said. “It’s hard to explain, especially with our start. Maybe we were working harder at our systems earlier on. We were fighting for our breaks. We just have to get back to that type of mentality.
“It hurts to go through a spot like this, but it happens to every team. It’s how you respond to it that counts the most,” Peca added. “[Chris] Osgood was talking before and he’s been on two Stanley Cup teams that went through periods like this.”
Hopefully, for the Islanders’ sake, he can make it a third.
