TORONTO — At the end of 2024, the Islanders got further away from playing playoff games in 2025.
It’s getting late early in the season, and just two days after Patrick Roy questioned his team’s mental toughness, the Islanders’ resiliency did not appear suddenly replenished in this matinee up in Toronto.
Rather, on a day where they played a relatively decent 60 minutes on the road, the Islanders just couldn’t get themselves over the hump in a tightly-fought 3-1 loss to the Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena.
Under different circumstances, you could excuse this one away. Given the situation in which the Islanders are currently in, though, failing to get two points here feels like par for the course in a season where the best thing you can say so far is that at least the Islanders have not fallen apart in the same spectacular fashion as the Rangers.
The 14-17-7 record — five points behind Ottawa for the last playoff spot with two more games played than the Senators — paints an accurate picture of what the Islanders are right now, and it isn’t pretty.
And, as far as resiliency goes, it is less than ideal that the Islanders have now gone 38 games with just one come-from-behind win while trailing in the third period.
So things did not bode well after Steven Lorentz’s goal late in the second put the Leafs ahead 2-1 heading into the final 20 minutes.
The Islanders did possess a lot of the puck in the third period. But the needed push never really materialized in terms of actual pressure or chances, with Toronto keeping the Isles on the perimeter for much of the period.
Ironically, one of their better chances came on a Leafs power play, when Brock Nelson got free up the ice for a chance in alone on Joseph Woll, but the Toronto netminder denied him.
The penalty kill, at least, had a perfect day until John Tavares scored into an empty net, which qualifies as notable given how terrible it’s been this season.
This, however, ended up being a rare Islanders game that lacked third-period drama, with Noah Dobson’s tripping penalty in the final minute leading to Tavares’ game-sealing goal.
The Isles were playing a strong first period and holding the Leafs without many chances, but it only took one for Toronto to get on the board, with William Nylander feeding David Kampf from behind the net 17:54 into the game.
You could see the Islanders deflate almost instantly, and they were saved from an almost-instant two-goal deficit shortly afterward only by Connor Dewar hitting the crossbar instead of the open net off an odd-man rush.
The Islanders did recover in the second period to put some pressure on Woll, and finally broke through when Dobson’s cross-ice pass found Jean-Gabriel Pageau at the 11:59 mark. But just 16 seconds later, Lorentz got up the ice and around Scott Mayfield for a free look at Ilya Sorokin, which he promptly buried.
Right now, this is a team that’s easy to play against — one that lets mistakes spiral and always seems one shift away from something going wrong.
More often than not, it does.
And the standings, which for so long painted a comforting picture in spite of the Islanders’ record, are starting to reflect a season that is slipping away in slow motion.
