Islanders enter holiday break in Metro basement after dud against lowly Sabres

For all the ceiling the Islanders had shown just two days prior, here came the thud that has acted as a metronome to the season’s first 35 games. 

Just when there were signs of the Islanders turning the corner, just when they had played their best game of the season, just when they had gotten healthy, just when they could relegate the Rangers to last place in the Metropolitan Division over Christmas — and all they had to do was beat the worst team in the league at home?

Thud. 

On this Festivus, the Islanders went down like George Costanza in the Feats of Strength.

They followed up their best game of the season by playing their worst on Monday night, getting skated off the UBS Arena ice against the 32nd-ranked team in the 32-team NHL, allowing the Sabres to snap a 13-game losing streak in a 7-1 blowout, with fans chanting for the general manager to be fired throughout the back half of the game. 

That meant instead of the Rangers sitting in the Metropolitan basement over the holiday, the Islanders were instead occupying the bottom spot thanks to Columbus beating Montreal. 

And instead of fashioning together a neat little narrative about finally hitting their stride, here came all the same issues that have plagued the Islanders all season long. 

Where the Islanders had played with obvious purpose and relentless physicality in Toronto just two nights earlier, they came out completely flat and hung Ilya Sorokin out to dry.

Starting his 11th straight game, Sorokin stopped just 15 of 20 shots over the first two periods, inexplicably staying in for the third to see out the end of this disaster. 

Against a reeling Buffalo team, the Islanders failed to seize the initiative and failed to establish a forecheck, peeling off instead of finishing hits and ceding ground in front of their own net.

And the penalty kill was, right back on schedule, terrible. 

Sound familiar? It should. Only this was worse. 

The Islanders put up an awful 16 shots on goal through the first 40 minutes, scoring only after going down 5-0.

There was not enough lipstick in the building to cover this pig. 

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By the end of the first period, the Islanders had already ceded a pair of goals to Beck Malenstyn and Jiri Kulich, both around the net and the latter coming seconds after a Sabres power play had ended — a goal that fell on the penalty kill in spirit if not on the scoresheet. 

Just to drive home the point, the PK made sure the next one was official, with Jason Zucker’s blast beating Sorokin at five-on-four to make it just 15 power-play goals allowed in 32 tries for the Islanders at home this season. 

Zach Benson and Jack Quinn added two more for the Sabres less than three minutes apart at the end of the second period, with boos and more than one chant calling for GM Lou Lamoriello to be fired rippling around UBS Arena. 

Those chants kept on going in the third as Tage Thompson and Kulich added two more goals. 

To add injury to insult, Scott Mayfield was hit in the face by a puck with 2:14 to go in the game and went to the dressing room after getting looked at by the trainer. 

Just as every Islander played excellent on Saturday, every Islander struggled on Monday night. Top to bottom, this was an embarrassing and unacceptable performance. 

The Islanders have played footsie with NHL .500 for the better part of a month, but never gotten over it — and are now two games under at the holiday break. 

It is 35 games into the season and they are healthy.

They just got blown out at home by the worst team in the league.

There is no excuse remaining — and four days between games for Lamoriello to consider what comes next. 

Can the answer really be to keep things status quo?