VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Patrick Roy made no secret of how happy he was that the Islanders survived Edmonton on Tuesday with a point after battling to reach overtime in an eventual 4-3 loss to the Oilers.
But although this position required at least a tacit admission that the Islanders had been badly outgunned by the Islanders, Roy didn't seem too concerned when it was brought up.
“No, we couldn't move our legs at the end,” he said of the penetration issues that plagued the Islanders throughout the night. “The players played, I don't know how many minutes [Ryan Pulock] and [Scott Mayfield] I played. Noah [Dobson] He probably played close to 30 minutes, that's a lot of minutes. But hey, we're collecting points while missing a lot of players, so we take it. We have to gain confidence because we are playing good hockey. When we're tired, we're tired.”
Roy banging an optimistic drum is nothing new, and it's entirely justified to be happy with the point they got on Tuesday night.
But a 15-2 high-risk margin of opportunity at five-on-five, and the Oilers looking harder for pucks than the Islanders all night, might be worth raising eyebrows, even on the concede.
“I don't know. I didn't feel like we were completely out of the fight,” Bullock told The Post. “I thought we held our own. There will be moments when you have to find a way to win this puck battle and be more heavy on it.
In fairness, the way the ice was tilted Tuesday night looks more like a one-off than a trend, although the Islanders — whose expected goal numbers have far outpaced their actual scores in the first 10 games of the season — have now played four straight games fewer From 50 percent in expected goals percentage for Natural Stat Trick.
It's probably not a coincidence that the tables turn when all the injuries are hitting the defense, and Roy pointed to the fact that the Islanders will need to spend more time staying alive rather than driving the play while they wait to recover.
However, Tuesday night took that to the extreme, and they probably can't continue to live with it.
“It was good to get a point and get something out of it,” Kyle McLean said. “Overall, after 60 minutes, I think we need a better game to get two points.”
Although it's too early to look at the playoffs, the Islanders' frequent trips to overtime are already costing them.
They entered Wednesday tied on points for the last wild-card spot in the East, but tied for last in the entire NHL in regulation wins, the first tiebreaker of just three.
The Islanders did not practice in Vancouver on Wednesday.
