The New York Islanders and Vancouver Canucks were each on the wrong end of a late goal-scoring flurry in their previous games.
Only the Canucks are worried this already has become a trend.
The Islanders will look to keep the Canucks winless on their Eastern Conference road trip on Tuesday night in Elmont, N.Y.
The Islanders have been off since Saturday night, when the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning scored twice in the final 1:44 of a 5-3 victory. The Canucks began their Big Apple-area tour Sunday night, when they never led in a 6-2 loss to the New York Rangers. They have lost the first three on their six-game road trip.
Brandon Hagel scored both late goals Saturday, when he became the second player in the last three games to close out a hat trick against the Islanders with two goals in the waning minutes of the third period. The Rangers’ Alexis Lafreniere scored a pair of empty-netters in the final 1:38 of a 5-2 win on Oct. 6.
But the Islanders’ biggest problem has been their starts. Of the five third-period goals New York has surrendered this season, three have been with its net empty. Meanwhile, the Islanders have been outscored 5-1 in the first period and faced a two-goal deficit in each of their three losses. That includes Saturday, when the Lightning led 2-0 before Tony DeAngelo scored 6:27 into the second.
Jake Guentzel scored just 1:27 later to give the Lightning another two-goal lead before Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Brayden Schenn scored in the final 8:19 of the period. The Islanders then outshot Tampa Bay 9-8 in the third.
“I liked how we handled the adversity of the night — self-inflicted with our start,” Islanders head coach Peter DeBoer said. “But over the last 40 minutes, we went toe-to-toe with a really, really good hockey team there and found a way to work back into that game.”
Getting back into games has been a challenge recently for the Canucks, who have been outscored 17-5 during their road trip. Vancouver has held just one lead — and for just 2:36 following Linus Karlsson’s goal 5:27 into a 4-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Saturday — during the trek.
The Canucks have been outscored 7-2 in the first period on the road trip and 4-1 in the third period — including 3-0 Sunday, when Lafreniere, Gabriel Perreault and William Cuylle scored in a span of a little more than 14 minutes.
The Canucks have given up at least five goals four times in seven games this season and have surrendered an NHL-high 35 goals overall — seven more than the Philadelphia Flyers entering play Monday.
“It’s not a great feeling, obviously, when you can’t put some wins together and the losses start piling up,” said Canucks head coach Manny Malhotra. “It’s not a great feeling, but the test of our character at this point is to make sure we’re coming to the rink with the right attitude ready to work.”
