Islanders’ lack of scoring is a real problem they need to fix — fast

You almost have to give the Islanders credit. It’s a hard thing to go nine games without scoring more than two goals and not have the ensuing results be a total disaster. Harder still when the No. 1 goalie is hurt for a chunk of that period. 

The longer the Islanders walked that tightrope, though, the harder it became to stay on it, and on Thursday they finally went down in flames, 7-2 to the Mammoth in a listless performance on both ends of the ice that marked their largest margin of defeat this season. 

“We lost battles, one-on-one battles, where we should have been better in those areas,” coach Patrick Roy said. “Take some penalties, offensive-zone penalties. Too many men. These details, at some point, will hurt you.” 

Minus the ability to score, the Islanders have been asking for near perfection from every other part of their game, and the good news — for now — is that a couple of rough nights in a row in the defensive zone can still be called an anomaly.