These are good times to be a goalie facing the Islanders.
After another game in which the Isles failed to score more than two goals and lost for the fifth time in six games, head coach Jack Capuano credited Boston’s Tuukka Rask — but also noted, “It seems like the last few games, [goalies] have been hot against us.”
This time, the Isles fell 2-1 at Barclays Center before heading on a three-game trip to California.
Johnny Boychuk prevented the Isles from suffering their first shutout of the season when he scored with a two-man advantage, but beyond that, the offense did very little as Capuano tries to find a lineup that has some spark.
“We’re close,” Boychuk said.
Since the Isles haven’t scored more than two goals in a game since Oct. 26, Capuano decided to yank Josh Bailey from the lineup following some subpar performances during the team’s recent slide.
The insertion of Taylor Beck didn’t make much of a difference.
The Isles did manage to get 37 shots on goal, but few were high quality.
“If you shoot pucks, you score goals and for whatever reason we wanted to be on the perimeter and you’re not going to win many games like that,” Capuano said. “We’re in a little bit of a rut right now. We’re not having any puck luck like we had earlier in the year. Maybe that’s expected. We’ve just got to work harder.”
Ryan Spooner gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead at 13:00 in the first, scoring with a two-man advantage after Marek Zidlicky was called for a tripping penalty and Brian Strait had a delay-of-game penalty.
The hole grew bigger in the second period, when Nick Leddy’s deflected a puck past Jaroslav Halak on a shot by Patrice Bergeron to make it 2-0 at 14:13.
And the Isles’ practically nonexistent power-play threat didn’t help. They hadn’t scored with a man advantage in their previous three games and looked awful at times against a Bruins team that had lost three straight games.
“On the power play, we’re not doing enough,” Capuano said.
Travis Hamonic, though, believes the Isles aren’t playing that poorly.
“We’re not that far removed from playing some really good hockey,” Hamonic said. “We’re still a confident group.”
That confidence could be tested with a game in San Jose on Tuesday, followed by games in Los Angeles and Anaheim.
“We’re excited about the challenge,” Hamonic said. “Things haven’t gone as planned the last couple weeks obviously, but that’s not to say we’re playing terrible.”
Wherever the games are, Capuano hopes they get back to what they were doing earlier in the season.
“We have to have some of our key guys pick it up,” Capuano said. “I’m not a huge stat guy, but stats don’t lie and these last five games, they have to pick it up. We’re not gonna win games 1-0 every night.”
It has left the team with almost no margin for error, which is taking a toll.
And Capuano hinted at more lineup changes after the game, including the possible addition of an extra defenseman for the road trip.
For Bailey, his recent defensive lapses caught up to him.
“He’s always been really good defensively and awareness away from the puck,” Capuano said. “That cost us, especially in the Carolina game. He knows that. There’s no blame on Josh. It’s just a subtle change. I just wanted to get Beck in there.”
Beck had been with Bridgeport in the AHL, but played 62 games with Nashville last season, scoring eight goals and adding eight assists.