McDonald: The Fact, Jack Is The Islanders Need To Be Concerned By Lightning Drubbing

Jack Capuano called this a one-off. A beat down that should just be forgotten.

However, the 6-1 drubbing at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning could just be considered a bad game if the Islanders were playing well early on this season.

But now at 4-6 through 10 games, there have been too many hiccups to just brush this loss off. Instead, there needs to be some concern and some desperation in the Islanders play.

In the immortal words of Private John Winger in Stripes, “That’s the fact, Jack.”

Needless to say, the Isles were looking to forget this and go to bed.

“Ain’t nothing positive, it is what it is,” Islanders captain John Tavares said abut tonight’s debacle. ”Got to move on, and get ready for Thursday (against Philadelphia). … You always try to learn from it. It’s a long season and a lot of games still coming up. We just got to put it behind us and get better tomorrow.”

Now consider Tampa Bay came in with some desperation to their skate. They were going through a three games in four days sojourn through the New York area, but took losses in Newark on Saturday and had a beat down at the hands of the Rangers on Sunday.

So they had the Islanders ripe of the taking. And again, you could brush this off if the same thing didn’t happen against the Sharks back on Oct. 18. San Jose took it on the chin against the Rangers, which in turn, got its revenge against the Islanders.

It’s not fair and frankly not fun at all to be a team’s Rangers elixir, however the Islanders need to start doing the little things again, which made them a second round playoff team last season and a Barclays Center beast.

First and foremost, they need to play a much cleaner game. Calvin de Haan’s five minutes interference major against Jonathan Drouin opened the floodgates and allowed two Tampa Bay goals. The Islanders were out-shot 14-5 in the first period, when Tampa Bay put a three-spot on the board.

“You can’t get into penalty trouble against good teams,” Capuano said of the Islanders season high 29 penalty minutes. ”Right from the start, we took the penalty and it just snowballed. . Special teams was a huge factor in tonight’s game for me.”

The Islander goalie situation wasn’t cleared up either. Thomas Greiss took a seat after three goals and Jaroslav Halak wasn’t that much better, both allowing three goals. But with the Islanders not putting too much of an offensive effort out there and essentially both goalies being left naked, let’s take a mulligan in this one.

Which many of the Islanders want to do with this match, as they have a big divisional game against Philly on Thursday.

“They just kept coming and we certainly didn’t answer,” said defenseman Travis Hamonic. “It’s certainly a frustrating night for everybody collectively. We have a quick turnaround. It’s a long year. We’ll right back on it.”

And that response on Thursday may be more telling than this beat down. It’s not time to panic, but it’s getting late early in Brooklyn.

That’s the fact, Jack.

About the Author

Joe McDonald

Editor-in-Chief
Joe McDonald is the founder and former publisher of NY Sports Day. After selling to i15Media in 2020, he serves as the Editor-in-Chief and responsible for the editorial side of the publication. In the past, Joe was the managing editor of NY Sportscene magazine and assistant editor of Mets Inside Pitch. He has covered the Mets since 2004.

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