VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Call it an inkblot test of a win.
On one hand, the Islanders overcame a horrid start to take two points from the Canucks on Monday with a 4-3 final, and six games into a seven-game road trip without their leading scorer, it is something to still be getting points.
And on the other, well, this looked like a mess at various points, and the Islanders have been playing with fire the entire trip. Are we really going to laud the Islanders for gritting out two points against the 32nd-ranked team in a 32-team league, which lost its 11th in a row Monday after trading their own leading scorer, Kiefer Sherwood, the same morning?
The Islanders would point out, and rightly so, that they all count the same in the standings, that there’s no such thing as an easy night in this league and that after nearly two weeks on the road, they are in desperate need of some rest and recovery.
“That was a found-a-way-to-win game,” Anders Lee told The Post. “… We’re walking outta here with two points. You gotta win games when you’re not at your best.”
All fair. And still, it’s hard not to feel uneasy about how this one went.
The Islanders struggled badly to handle Vancouver’s physicality, lost too many battles and — it feels like a broken record by now — were poor in front of both nets. They were discombobulated throughout the game’s early stages, and the newly put together second line of Max Tsyplakov, Cal Ritchie and Emil Heineman lasted all of one period, with two goals against, before Tsyplakov was unceremoniously benched.
Nevertheless, Vancouver couldn’t put them away early, and the Islanders worked their way back into this one. They took a 3-2 lead on a Ryan Pulock snipe at 15:58 of the second, less than two minutes after Anthony Duclair’s second goal of the night had tied the game on the power play.
The Islanders gave Vancouver a window of opportunity by wasting a 1:39-long 5-on-3 at the start of the third, but instead of seizing momentum, the Canucks fumbled it themselves.
They failed to convert their own power play shortly afterward, then the Islanders dutifully made it 4-2, with Tony DeAngelo slamming in Lee’s rebound.
Skating at 6-on-5, the Canucks got back within one on Drew O’Connor’s tip-in from Filip Hronek to throw a scare into the Islanders. That was all they could do though.
“We started to be better in our one-on-one battles,” coach Patrick Roy said. “That was the big difference. I think we gave nine chances after the first, it was way too many. So we had to refocus on our defense and play better defensively.”
Duclair, who loosed a right-circle wrister for the Islanders’ first goal of the night, has been one of few unambiguous positives for the club’s struggling offense on this trip. Since his hat trick two weeks ago against New Jersey, he’s looked like a wholly different player, confident and decisive.
“I’m using [Casey] Cizikas’ stick, made the switch,” Duclair said, revealing that his first game with the different stick was the five-point night against the Devils. “Think that’s why it’s going in.”
His chemistry with Mat Barzal, who is always engaged when returning home to Vancouver, was on display Monday as the top line put together a strong night. So too was the offensive prowess of the Matthew Schaefer-Pulock pair, with the rookie dynamic as ever, and saving a goal by clearing Evander Kane’s shot off the line after it trickled through Sorokin in the third.
On the other side of the ledger, start with Tsyplakov, whose confidence looks plainly shot. He looked lost on Monday, was unceremoniously benched after the first period and it’s getting hard to see how this situation gets fixed.
“It’s on me,” Roy said of that situation, adding that Tsyplakov will likely stay in the lineup against the Kraken. “He didn’t play a bad game. Just, he hasn’t played a lot and sometimes when that happens, you just want to go with the guys that you think you got the best chance to win [with].”
Cal Ritchie saved his night by notching an assist in his third straight game but otherwise looked stuck in the same funk he’s been in lately.
The Islanders lack of physicality, as a team, was on stark display here too. The Canucks bum-rushed them in the first, the visitors looked bewildered and a better opponent would have surged to an easy win.
Getting two points isn’t enough reason to ignore the wake-up call.
