The Islanders battled and fought the Sabres nearly to a draw, bringing the Nassau Coliseum crowd to its feet.
Unfortunately, that was during a second period scrum that led to two game misconducts for each team, with the Isles already trailing 4-0 en route to an ugly 7-1 loss to Buffalo.
For all the good things the team did in its first two games – a tough loss in New Jersey and a convincing win over St. Louis on Saturday – the Islanders were just as bad yesterday.
With Rick DiPietro still dressed and sitting on the bench, yet to make his season debut after offseason knee surgery, the team looked lost, starting with backup goalie Joey MacDonald and continuing to just about every aspect of their game. And the team is still not admitting there’s anything unusual about DiPietro’s absence on the ice.
“They made us pay,” MacDonald said.
“Just gotta throw this away,” coach Scott Gordon said.
If only it were that easy. The team’s third match in four days fell apart when they gave up four goals in the second period. And despite MacDonald’s problems, Gordon said he never considered pulling him and putting in DiPietro.
“I’m not a strong believer in pulling goalies to change momentum,” said Gordon, an ex-goalie, adding again that DiPietro hadn’t suffered any setbacks. “I want our goalies to get the feeling if things don’t go right for them early, not to look at the bench.”
And other than a decent job on the penalty kill, the rest of the Isles weren’t any better.
“We just didn’t work as hard,” Bill Guerin said of the difference between yesterday’s loss and Saturday’s victory. “We took a lot of bad penalties. We were looking for the easy way.”
Things got so bad in that second period, when it seemed that every shot Buffalo took led either to a goal or a rebound, that newcomer Nate Thompson was left to resort to starting a fight with Adam Mair after a faceoff.
“At that point, I was trying to get something going,” Thompson said. “You hope to get a couple of goals after, but it didn’t work out.”
Instead, fights broke out all over the ice, ending with Sean Bergenheim and Brendan Witt both getting game misconducts, as well as Buffalo’s Craig Rivet and Patrick Kaleta.
Now, the Isles have two days off to try to correct what went wrong before heading on the road.
“We have a lot of work to do and I’m sure we’ll do it over the next couple of days,” Guerin said.
Sabres 7 Islanders 1