A sellout crowd filled Nassau Coliseum to see the suddenly resurgent Islanders, on a two-game win streak over the hated Rangers and rival Devils, and wunderkind John Tavares, the freshly-named NHL’s First Star of the Week.
It’s a shame the Islanders had to ruin all the positives vibes on President’s Day with an effort — by far their worst of the lockout-shortened season — that reminded every one why expectations were so low to begin with.
In their defense, they didn’t take long — 26 seconds into the contest they were behind and the afternoon only grew unbearably worse from that point on in a jarring 7-0 loss to the middling Flyers who won for the third time on the road in 11 chances.
If it was boxing, the fight would’ve been stopped in the second period, and saved the Islanders faithful their vocal cords.
They spent large portions of the rout, well in hand before the third period began, groaning and booing. There was even a brief “DP” chant for beleaguered backup goaltender Rick DiPietro after Evgeni Nabokov was beaten for the third of what would be seven times.
Danny Briere notched a hat trick and Claude Giroux scored twice in the onslaught for the Flyers.
Even the Islanders special teams, ranked among the best in the league, struggled. They whiffed on five power play opportunities and gave up two goals on the penalty kill. Spacing in the Flyers zone was poor, passing amiss, and the back line porous yet again. There didn’t seem to be a plan of attack at either end of the ice.
Tavares, named the NHL’s First Star of the Week before the contest, had his goal-scoring streak end at fivef. He accrued four first-period penalty minutes — as many as he accrued in the season’s previous 14 games — and like his teammates, wasn’t sharp.
The opening shift set the lopsided game’s tone. A fortunate carom and a uncharacteristically weak back-check by the Tavares line led to Giroux’s goal less than a half-minute after the opening face-off.
The play symbolized the rest of the afternoon — the Flyers had jump and the Islanders didn’t. The Flyers got off eight of the game’s first 10 shots and if not for Nabokov, the one-goal margin after the first period would’ve been wider.
The Islanders did have a golden opportunity to pull even, a two-minute 5-on-3, but the usually effective man advantage was hesitant and unorganized, and the Isles failed to get a single shot on net.
It got worse once the second period began, Matt Read getting to a loose puck in front with Nabokov out of the crease. And when Casey Cizikas failed to convert on a 2-on-1, shorthanded opportunity, the Flyers made the Islanders pay as Brayden Schenn beat Nabokov on a counterattack. Giroux added another later in the period and Zolnierczyk made it 5-0 when he beat the Islander defense, drew Nabokov out of the crease and set up Zac Rinaldo for a rudimentary tap-in.
It elicited an indifferent reaction from the diminished crowd. By this point, the fans still remaining were either Flyers supporters or beaten-down Islanders fans too despondent to react.
zbraziller@nypost.com