WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Off the heels of one of their worst games all year, nothing other than two points was going to be enough for the Islanders on Tuesday.
So no, it doesn’t mean much that the Isles put together a better, more competitive effort against the Jets than they did one night prior in Minnesota.
A 4-2 loss in Winnipeg, the Islanders’ third in a row and fifth in sixth games, is beyond silver linings for a team that could not find a way to halt its slow descent down the standings.
With two days before they finish out this road trip with a must-win game against the basement-dwelling Blackhawks, the Isles need to embark on some soul-searching.
Because whatever self-examination occurred after being embarrassed by the Wild was not enough to stop the bleeding.
“You go through ups and downs in a season and try to stay as even as possible,” Scott Mayfield said. “When you’re not getting points it’s tough. I think it’s more we need to dig deep and find a way.”
The lack of compete that reared its head on Monday was gone, at least, and in another context, the Isles might have been able to wave this one off as a passable road performance on a back-to-back in which they didn’t get the bounces.
But now is no time for that.
“Obviously it’s not the time of year with the way things have been going to be looking for moral victories,” Kyle Palmeri told The Post. “I thought we competed hard and that’s something to build on.”
With Bo Horvat and Mat Barzal split up again and the Islanders without Pierre Engvall — declared day-to-day with an upper-body injury — going 200 feet with the puck became a Herculean task.
The Isles remained too sloppy in their own zone and not crisp enough with their passes, and unsurprisingly, struggled to get on the cycle and sustain meaningful puck possession as a result.
And, for good measure, they continued taking bad penalties.
That, more than anything, was how this game fell apart. Neal Pionk broke a 1-1 tie with a power-play goal at the 15:19 mark of the second after Ilya Sorokin lost a skate blade, rendering him unable to go side-to-side and letting the former Ranger score into an essentially open net.
Just 2:39 later, after the Islanders had killed off their third penalty of the second period, Adam Pelech failed to corral the puck at the left post — allowing Mason Appleton to stuff it in shortside.
“Penalties totally disrupt the flow,” coach Lane Lambert said. “They did [Monday] night, early on, and they did again tonight. We’ve gotta stay out of the box.”
The Islanders made a run at a comeback, with Anders Lee cutting the lead to 3-2 on a banked-in goal just 35 seconds into the third period.
But the Jets then did to the Islanders what the Isles used to do to so many other teams.
They bogged the game down, refused to allow sustained time in the offensive zone and sucked the life right out of their momentum.
Then, for good measure, Noah Dobson tripped Nino Niederreiter with 4:20 to go, bleeding another two minutes off the clock with another penalty that just can’t happen.
The Jets didn’t score on that power play, but Kyle Connor scored into an empty net with 1:22 to go, sealing the game.
“We had some good looks, created a lot of plays, guys made some good plays out there,” Lee told The Post. “You’ve gotta give [Connor] Hellebuyck some credit, too. He made some really good saves in some tight areas. That maybe was the difference.”
The captain went the optimistic route in his assessment, despite the Islanders getting outshot 44-32.
“I think tonight was a big step forward in having the right focus and the right intensity to win a hockey game,” Lee said. “We take another step, we take a step on Friday and we continue to get back to who we are and who we’ve been. Shed a little bit of what’s going on lately.”
It is anything but positive, though, that over halfway through the season the Islanders can still take something like that as a plus
