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After a strong start to their five-game road trip, the New York Islanders won just one of their three games this week. The Islanders fell 3-2 to the Dallas Stars on Tuesday, before defeating the Carolina Hurricanes 2-1 on Friday and then suffering a 6-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues yesterday.
Other than yesterday’s blowout loss against St. Louis, the stretch of road games can be categorized as a success overall though, taking 6 of 10 possible points. Grant Hutton also picked up his first NHL goal in the loss to the Blues.
That said, scoring once again took a nosedive over the last few games, after a stretch of games where the team was finally able to bury chances. Over the three games this week, New York managed just five goals combined and only 73 shots total.
Mathew Barzal has gone four games without a point and Anthony Beauvillier is riding a six-game pointless streak as well, while Josh Bailey has a single assist in his last five games and Anders Lee has really cooled off too. It’s too much of a trend that New York’s top forwards can go long stretches without producing (though many of the Islanders’ top forwards are realistically not meant to be counted on to carry the team’s offense to begin with). New York only has three forwards who are holding a pace of 50 points per 82 and the team still remains 25th in goals per game.
The Islanders have 11 games remaining now and their recent success does have them with clear possession of ninth place in the Eastern Conference in points percentage, but still completely out of the playoff race. They do have a pretty tough schedule as well to wrap up the year, with nine of their 11 remaining games coming against current playoff teams.
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