The Islanders’ effort is all fine and dandy, the abiding by edicts and playing within a structure all embraced, but at some point, if the pucks stop going in the net, something has to change.
For head coach Jack Capuano, that point finally came after last night’s 3-0 loss to the Winnipeg Jets at the Coliseum, giving his team six winless games in a row (0-4-2) and a paltry point total (eight through 10 games) that might make some start to panic.
“I thought we played a pretty good game, but we have to score goals,” Capuano said. “I’m not going to keep harping on it. They’ve got to find a way to get it done, so we’ll probably change some lines and do some different things going into the Washington game [tomorrow].”
The Islanders have scored 18 goals in their first 10 games (3-5-2), making them the slowest starting offensive team in the franchise’s 40-year history.
“I don’t know if it’s a breaking point, but come [tomorrow] night [against the Capitals], if we have to play three lines, we’ll play three lines,” Capuano said. “If we have to play five defensemen, we’ll play five defensemen. We have to win a game.”
Through this dry spell, Capuano has preached patience and work ethic, but as the Islanders continue to rack up gaudy numbers such as the 34 shots they had last night, without anything to show for it, a change is imminent.
“I think we’ve given guys a chance to see what they can do, but now the bottom line is, minutes don’t mean anything anymore,” Capuano said. “We’ve got to win games.”
Going scoreless last night was also in large part to the terrific performance by Jets goalie Ondrej Pavelec, who without making any spectacular saves made a whole bunch of good ones.
“He’s a good goalie, we knew that going in,” said Josh Bailey, who had three shots on goal and whose line with Brian Rolston and Blake Comeau had its strongest performance this season.
“We knew we needed to put a lot of pucks towards him, and I think we did that,” Bailey added. “It’s just a matter of putting some pucks in the back of the net.”
Pavelec’s performance rewarded him with the win because of a nifty first-period goal by Evander Kane, followed by a deflected third-period goal from Johnny Oduya and an empty-netter by Alex Burmistrov.
“It’s frustrating,” said Isles goalie Rick DiPietro, who played solid in his second start of the season, notching 23 saves. “You go home and it’s tough to sleep at night.”