As if the Islanders didn’t already have enough issues – they have lost five in a row at home and five of six overall – yesterday, thanks to a flu outbreak, they barely had enough skaters to practice.
And with the team battling the Rangers to stay in eighth place in the Eastern Conference, the Islanders can illafford to sustain many more losses.
But their effort to stop the recent slide wasn’t helped by the absence of Andy Sutton and Ruslan Fedotenko, who both missed Tuesday’s loss to the Senators, as well as that of Mike Sillinger, Bryan Berard and Rick DiPietro – who all missed practice yesterday.
Ted Nolan hoped that they all would be able to return in time for tonight’s game at the Nassau Coliseum against the Kings, but couldn’t guarantee it.
“You just deal with it,” Bill Guerin said. “You have to adjust. And walk around with a bottle of Purell for your hands.”
“Maybe we should start wearing masks,” Trent Hunter said with a laugh, while acknowledging the trouble not having so many players out has caused. “It definitely throws a wrench into things.”
And the Islanders don’t need any more issues.
They have lost in all sorts of ways at home of late, losing in many different fashions.
Yesterday, Nolan had Bryan Trottier address the team about “playing with effort and desire.”
The Hall-of-Famer, who is frequently around the team as its Executive Director of Player Development, was on the ice yesterday – partially because the flu bug also caught assistant coach Gerard Gallant.
And while Nolan requested his presence and was pleased to have him out there, he also knows Trottier’s words alone won’t turn things around for his team.
“We’ve got to work our way out of it,” Nolan said. “There’s no magical solution to it.”
But Bill Guerin doesn’t think the Isles are far off from playing well, as they were earlier in the year, when they won five of their first seven at the Coliseum and were one of the better teams in the league on home ice.
“We just have to get back to basics,” Guerin said. “One good effort can turn us around. Maybe we have to get a little hungrier around the net.”
The fact that Los Angeles – with the fewest points in the league – is coming to town should help matters, but Nolan isn’t looking at that.
“Our biggest opponent right now is ourselves,” Nolan said. “We can’t be concerned with anything else but what we’re doing.”
The Kings, despite only having only 43 points on the season, are 5-2-1 over their last eight.