This point, this one doesn’t exactly feel good.
The Islanders spent the majority of Saturday night delighting their 16,170 fans at the sold-out Coliseum, using the home opener as a showcase for the possibilities of what could come with outstanding goaltending from Evgeni Nabokov and transcendent play from star center John Tavares.
Yet reality cracked the hopeful veneer, and a 2-0 third-period lead for the Islanders quickly morphed into 3-2 shootout loss to the Blue Jackets, leaving the mournful refrain of moral victory to resonate into the humid Long Island evening.
“It’s a real piss off, to be honest,” said defenseman Travis Hamonic, who close-call high-sticking penalty with 6:03 gone by in the third allowed Mark Letestu cut the Isles lead to 2-1 with his power play wrist shot, giving the Blue Jackets life.
“I thought we played a really good game, and we’re not going to let the things that haunted us the last couple years creep up on us. We’re going to learn right now how to play these games and how to put a team away.”
The storyline of this season inevitably will be about the Islanders chance to back up their postseason breakthrough last season with another. In the first game of the season, Friday night in Newark, they managed to claw back against the Devils and win in a shootout. This one went exactly the opposite way, and shows the ground they stand on is far from being solid, shaken by Cam Atikinson’s winning tally in the fourth round of the skills competition.
“This league is so evenly matched up, you’re never going to dominate anyone for 60 minutes,” said Nabokov, who was outstanding for the second straight night in making 27 saves, the majority of them sterling. “You have to play well for 60 minutes. I thought we played really well for most of the game, and I think they got a little bit lucky on the second goal, and now we’re talking about a loss. It’s those little things that can cost you a game.”
That second goal was off the stick of Ryan Johansen, who drove hard to the net and managed just to get a stick on it as Islanders forward Peter Regin slid into Nabokov and the puck bounded over the goal line. The Blue Jackets celebrated enthusiastically behind the goal, and the crowd began to murmur as it had in years past, years when all the things that could go wrong always seemed to happen.
“We didn’t do enough in the third,” said coach Jack Capuano, whose team was staked to it’s 2-0 lead by second-period goals from Lubomir Visnovsky (a rifle shot on the power play) and Matt Moulson, who netted an all-world, no-look pass from John Tavares.
“Can we learn from the 2-0 lead? Yeah, I’m sure we’ll learn,” Capuano said. “We have to learn that no matter what the score is, you can’t be on the perimeter.”
Both teams had chances in the overtime, with the Islanders actually playing the first 1:19 over the extra frame with a 4-on-3 advantage. But Blue Jackets goalie and reigning Vezina Trophy winner Sergei Bobrovsky stood tall, and the game was determined by the skills competition.
“Three out of four points,” Capuano said about his team’s opening two games. “Something that we have to learn from and get better at.”
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Capuano inferred rugged forward Cal Clutterbuck (leg laceration) could be ready for the team’s next game, Tuesday at the Coliseum against the Coyotes. If not then, they likely either Friday in Chicago or Saturday in Nashville.