There was no trap, no stumble, no setback.
Instead, Tuesday night the Islanders decided to make their final regular-season game at the Coliseum this season an affirmation of their standing, a 5-2 pounding of the toothless Panthers that was as complete a confidence builder as one could have asked for.
In the morning, coach Jack Capuano was asked if this one against the 30th-overall Panthers was ripe for a letdown.
“If it is, we’ve got problems,” Capuano said. “We’ve done a good job over the last two weeks enjoying a win if it’s a win, or even a loss, just focusing and recommitting to what we have to do.”
The Islanders (21-16-5) were coming off the most entertaining game of the season, a 1-0 overtime loss to the Rangers on Saturday at the Coliseum. Having now gone 9-1-2 over the past 12 games, they have 49 points. Before play wrapped up last night, the sixth-place Senators started their home game against the Hurricanes with 48 points, and the eight-place Rangers started their road game against the Flyers with 46.
“Just focus and commitment level,” is how Capuano explained his team’s success, now going into its season-ending five-game road trip with a clear chance to break a five-year drought without a playoff appearance. “We’re ignoring the distractions from you guys [the media] and honestly, just going about our business.”
The team went about their business from the get-go against the Panthers (13-23-6), never letting them think they had a chance. By the time there was four minutes remaining in the first period, the Islanders were up 3-0 behind goals from Matt Moulson, Mark Streit and Michael Grabner. When Dmitry Kulikov scored a power play for the Panthers with less than two minutes left in the first, there might have been a whisper of a chance.
That might have gotten louder had this been an Islanders team of the past five years, but this is not any of those teams. Instead, behind a rare goal from newly inserted defenseman Radek Martinek, followed 14 seconds later by Grabner’s second of the evening, the Islanders buried their woeful opponents just as a playoff team should.
Though Marcel Goc got another for the Panthers to finish the second 5-2, the 15,992 inside — just 248 filled seats short of a sellout — began chanting, “We want playoffs.”
“The fans have been great,” Capuano said, knowing they only will be better if the team gets to return to the Coliseum with a postseason series.
bcyrgalis@nypost.com