Hard luck and bad bounces can turn a positive into a negative rather quickly.
On Tuesday night at the Coliseum, the Islanders put to rest some bad play and poor execution with a sterling performance against the Sabres — and in contrast to almost all propriety, wound up on the wrong end of a 4-3 shootout loss.
The Sabres (1-6-1) managed to get their first win of the season by taking advantage of the few opportunities they did get, while the Islanders (2-2-2) only could gain a point to quell what followed two regulation losses in a row.
“I thought we played a good game,” said coach Jack Capuano, whose team fell when Tyler Ennis netted the winning tally in the second round of the skills competition. “It was a little wide open for me, but the things and details we discussed with our guys this week, I think they did well.”
Most of that was focused on creating more offense, and that was something the Islanders did all night, peppering Sabres goalie Ryan Miller with 44 shots. Yet Miller — the free agent at the end of the season who could end up on Long Island — made some stellar saves, and allowed for the bounces his team received to be good enough.
It also was good enough because the Islanders never found a way to bury an opponent that looked overmatched throughout, an opponent that then left the half-empty barn with the winner’s take.
“We got to find a way to get two points out of that game,” said a perturbed Kyle Okposo. “Just a couple bad bounces, really. Still, at the end of the day, we have to find a way to get two points.”
Okposo took matters into his own bare hands midway through the third period, when Sabres captain and perpetual pest Steve Ott attempted to fight Islanders superstar John Tavares. Ott ripped Tavares’ helmet from his head, then grabbed him as Tavares tried to skate away. Okposo sprinted over, dropped his gloves, and the ensuing kerfuffle ended with Ott in the box for an extra two minutes for his hold.
“He’s just running around, and you can’t go after 91,” Okposo said about his captain. “Just can’t do that. I jumped in there, and that will happen all season.”
On the Islanders’ ensuing power play, Tavares took a one-timer that deflected in off Matt Moulson’s leg to give them a 3-2 lead, a lead that seemed insurmountable.
But with 2:01 remaining in regulation, Marcus Foligno took a turnaround, seeing-eye wrist shot that beat goalie Evgeni Nabokov over the glove to tie it 3-3 and send it to overtime.
“We have to find a way to allow less than three goals,” said Nabokov, who before that had allowed a second-period goal to Tyler Ennis, which had snuck behind him after three deflections and tied it 1-1, and another to Thomas Vanek on a second-period power play that tied it 2-2. “That’s how we win hockey games. We give up less than three goals, we win the hockey games.”
Frans Nielsen and Matt Martin put up the early goals for the Islanders that gave them their first two of three leads of the night, but it was all not enough in the end.
“This league is all about points, it’s not about playing well,” Nabokov said. “We got the lead at home, 3-2, and I think we have to now close teams and get those two points.”
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Rookies Matt Donovan and Brock Nelson were healthy scratches for the second straight game, as Matt Carkner played on defense for Donovan and Eric Boulton made his season debut up front. … Forward Pierre-Marc Bouchard came back into the lineup after being a scratch in Nashville on Saturday, as forward Colin McDonald has a left hip injury that the team said is day-to-day.