In a game the Islanders absolutely needed to have, on a night where a response was necessary after getting dominated at home 24 hours prior, with two points nothing short of critical to their playoff hopes, they flatlined.
Outside of Ilya Sorokin, who singlehandedly kept them in the game, the Islanders were barely competitive.
All 20 skaters bear responsibility for this performance that was bad enough to warrant firings and severe changes to the roster if indeed the Islanders fail to make the playoffs, as now seems likely.
They were played off the ice here at the Lenovo Center in a 4-3 loss to the Hurricanes that handed the Isles a season-long four-game losing streak at the exact moment they could afford it least.
Nominally speaking, they still held a playoff spot at the close of business Saturday.
In reality, they are like a prisoner waiting on a death sentence.
By the next time they play a game on Thursday at home against the Maple Leafs, the Blue Jackets, Flyers, Red Wings and Senators all will have had the chance to pass them in the standings, and it is a step too far to hope that none of the four do so.
The Isles are now 3-7-0 in their last 10, an astonishing stretch that seemed to come out of nowhere and which is now likely to keep them out of the playoffs a second straight season.
There are four games left, all of which are at UBS and the Islanders may need to run the table or come close in order to save their season.
Which would require an order of magnitude more fight than they showed Saturday, for starters.
Just like 24 hours prior on Long Island, though, the Islanders’ performance did not even come close to meeting the moment.
They had four shots in the first period, just two in the second and barely touched the puck.
The Hurricanes were faster, way more physical, less prone to error, generated more of a forecheck and, damningly, played with more urgency than the Islanders could muster.
There was defensive breakdown after defensive breakdown — too many to count and too many responsible parties to try to dole out blame.
It was one of their worst efforts of the season, in one of their biggest games of the season.
After spending all year praising their own resiliency, they looked like a team that had quit.
It was only because of Sorokin, who for the umpteenth time was hung out to dry by his teammates, and because ‘Canes netminder Brandon Bussi put in a rare shaky outing that the Islanders hung onto a 3-2 deficit entering the last 20 minutes.
Nothing about the way the game had gone, though, indicated that they could do anything with it.
Even when they finally seemed to get a break in the form of an offensive-zone slash by Alexander Nikishin late in the second with the game tied at two, the Islanders immediately bled a two-on-one rush and a shorthanded Sebastian Aho goal.
The ‘Canes ended any hopes of a comeback just 24 seconds into the third as Andrei Svechnikov’s cross-ice feed to Seth Jarvis was buried off the crossbar and in to make it 4-2.
Anders Lee’s six-on-five goal saved some face for the Islanders on the scoreboard, but did little to hide their performance for most of the night.
The lineup decisions from Patrick Roy, whose job may well be on the line over the next 10 days, were odd, but paid off when Max Shabanov — inserted in for just his third game since the Olympic break — scored his first goal since Dec. 27.
Ultimately, the lineup chessboard did little to lose the Islanders this game.
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They simply did not come ready to play, all of 24 hours after Roy took the blame for his team being unready against the Flyers.
Mat Barzal turned over puck after puck, Matthew Schaefer looked like his ever-increasing workload was getting to him, Bo Horvat was hardly noticeable.
There was no spark in the bottom six from which Kyle MacLean was bizarrely omitted as a healthy scratch, and the defense corps could not so much as execute a breakout.
In just a few weeks, the season has done a total 180.
The Islanders played on Saturday like they are already doomed to the consequences.
