An early goal from the New York Islanders Wednesday night was not enough to discourage the Montreal Canadiens and it was not enough to inspire the Islanders as they lost the game, 3-1, for their fourth straight loss.
“We can’t capitalize on our chances right now,” the Islanders’ Mathew Barzal said. “It’s frustrating. But the chances were there. Yeah, that game was winnable.”
The Isles are in a tail spin and are just 4-8-2 in their last 14 games and there ius a serious lack of urgency or energy on the bench.
“We know they’re fast, we know they’re desperate to win, but we’ve got to be more desperate,” the Isles’ Anthony Beauvillier said. “We’ve got to play with more urgency. I mean, there’s [18] games left, but we’ve got to stop counting the games and trying to put some points on the board for us.”
Jonathan Drouin, Paul Byron and Nikita Scherbak scored for the Habs as they improved to 24-29-10.
“We’re going to play playoff teams that are going to be hungry, or trying to make the playoffs, so we’ve got to match their intensity, and I think we did that tonight,” Drouin said after the game.
Antti Niemi had a solid game in the Montreal nets with 27 saves and improved to 4-1-1 over his last starts.
“He (Niemi) played amazing and he gave us the chance to win the game, for sure,” Scherbak said.
[WATCH:Â All Islanders vs. Canadiens highlights]
Jaroslav Halak made 23 saves in taking the dismal loss.
“We need to find a way,” Halak said. “It starts from me, and it goes along. And I guess tonight wasn’t good enough for two points.”
New York is still within reach of the wild card in the east but their current play suggests the team has lost their edge.
“I think they had three chances in the second period, and they scored on two. It was disappointing to be down,” Islanders head coach Doug Weight said. “It felt like we did a lot of good things, but give them credit, they battled, they got in shot lanes and we kind of didn’t take advantage of some good hard work we had. A couple of empty net looks, and a couple of really good chances down the slot, we didn’t bury it.”
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