It’s not last spring. Not by a long shot.
As much as parts of Tuesday night seemed to be ripped from the annals of last season’s first-round playoff series between the Islanders and Penguins, the result was a reminder of who won that series, and why.
The Islanders could do little but sit and watch as Sidney Crosby took over the third period and then settled it in overtime, the game-winner coming 3:44 into the extra frame when Crosby just burglarized Thomas Vanek and then split Calvin de Haan and Travis Hamonic to chip in his second goal of the night, giving Pittsburgh the 3-2 win at Nassau Coliseum.
“There are elite players in this league, and we talk about it a lot — you’re not going to stop them, you just have to try and contain them,” coach Jack Capuano said. “I thought we did a really good job of eliminating some of his chances. But he came up big for them.”
It was about six months ago when the Islanders had all the hope in the world, an exciting young team that broke a six-year postseason drought and pushed the top-seeded Penguins in a spirited six-game affair. Yet that couldn’t seem further away now, as the Islanders (8-15-5) have lost two in a row in overtime, seven in a row overall, and 12 of their past 14.
“To me, you try to get the most out of your players and you want your guys to work,” said Capuano, whose team is digging a deep hole in the basement of the Metropolitan Division, and who is putting himself closer to the edge of losing his job with every mounting loss. “And they’re working.”
There is little question Capuano still is getting top effort out of his players, but that effort is just not enough. After Kyle Okposo put two easy goals past Marc-Andre Fleury within the first 12:55, the 13,915 in attendance could see in vivid recollection how Fleury choked away two of the first four games of that series.
“I thought we played a pretty good hockey game,” said Okposo, who broke an eight-game scoreless streak. “The third period, for whatever reason, I don’t think we had the same pizzazz, the same jam. We’ve got to do a better job of closing out games.”
Just as in that playoff series, the Islanders couldn’t keep up the pressure and were undermined by their penalty kill. The Penguins (19-9-1) are first in the division, and have the league’s top-ranked power play. So they got one goal on the man-advantage from James Neal in the final minute of the second to cut it to 2-1, and then another from Crosby with 8:00 gone by in the third to tie it.
They sandwiched a penalty shot from Frans Nielsen, the result of a shorthanded breakaway just before Crosby’s goal, but one that Fleury denied.
“For whatever reason, against this team, our penalty kill, we just can’t stop them,” said Capuano, whose man-down unit is dead last in the league.
Capuano did get a terrific performance from third-string goalie Anders Nilsson, who made 31 impressive stops in his second straight start. There also were some swallowed whistles from the referees down the stretch, most notably when Vanek was taken down twice in front of the Penguins net on a pivotal Islanders power play late in the third.
But, as Capuano pointed out, his team is now 0-14-2 when it scores two or less goals, and won’t find it any easier to score on the upcoming five-game road trip through the rugged west coast, starting Thursday in St. Louis.
“My frustration is what the players are feeling like,” Capuano said. “That’s the tough thing.”