Islanders fall to Flyers, losing third straight game in chorus of boos at UBS Arena

Every single boo was justified.

And there were plenty.

“It was just not good enough by anybody,” Bo Horvat told Newsday. “We’ve just got to be a heck of a lot better if we’re going to get wins and make a push here in the last five games.”

The Islanders, unable to overcome a slow start, lost control of their own postseason destiny with a damaging 4-1 defeat to the Flyers on Friday night at UBS Arena. It left coach Patrick Roy to admit, “I’ll take part of the blame for the first period. I have a job to do to make sure our team is ready and play a strong game. We’re together in this.”

“Just a little careless with the puck,” defenseman Ryan Pulock. “I feel like we didn’t get to our game right away and gave them a chance to get to theirs. We gave up a couple and then we were chasing it. Frustrating. Our backs are against the wall here and we need to be ready. We have to stop the bleeding here. We have to stop the bleeding [Saturday].”

That would be in Carolina against the Metropolitan Division-leading Hurricanes.

The Islanders (42-30-5), who have dropped three straight and six of nine as Ilya Sorokin made 17 saves in his 10th straight appearance — no word on whether he starts back-to-back games for a third time in a row — remain in third place. They are one point ahead of the Blue Jackets, who have played one fewer game.

But the Flyers (38-26-12), who got 21 saves from Dan Vladar, are also just one point back with one game in hand.

According to MoneyPuck.com, the regulation loss dropped the Islanders’ chances of making the playoffs by 21.6% to just 40.2%.

“Like the players said, it’s bad timing to have a bad week,” Roy said. “But that’s what everybody does. They bounce back. We have a game against Carolina and we’re going to have to bounce back.”

Whether they can at this point is a legitimate question.

It certainly seemed like a shaken-up team in the dressing room and with the offense, defense, power play (0 for 3) and now possibly Sorokin struggling, there seems to be few avenues to rebounding.

Plus, this wasn’t an isolated clunker, even if the Islanders held a 19-9 shot advantage over the final two periods.

Their previous home game was an 8-3 loss to the second-place Penguins on Monday as Sorokin was pulled in the third period after allowing a career-high seven goals. As much as it can be said that a goalie wasn’t the issue after allowing seven goals, Sorokin was not that night. Instead, it was the Islanders’ repeated defensive miscues and blown assignments that cost them.

Leaky defense plus a lack of aggressive offense around the net added to a 4-3 loss in Buffalo the next night and the Islanders then spent the days in between games preaching that all they had to do was focus on themselves and put together a 60-minute effort.

Those turned out to be just words and empty ones at that as the Islanders made a mess of things from the opening faceoff.

“I think we’ve done enough talking in here,” Horvat said. “It’s just a matter of going out there and doing it. You can talk all you want. You can try to find solutions but, at the end of the day, it’s us that’s got to go do it out there. You can say what you want in the room but everybody’s got to step up their game another five, six percent.”

The Islanders were inexcusably outshot 12-2 in the first period — defenseman Adam Pelech from the left point got their first shot at 13:15 — and trailed 2-0 at the first intermission as they were booed off the ice with a “Let’s Go Flyers” chant also being heard.

The shots were 9-1 when Owen Tippett finished a two-on-one rush at 13:54 after Pulock’s turnover. That became 2-0 at 15:01 as Alex Bump beat Sorokin over his left shoulder from the left wall.

It was a shot Sorokin likely should have stopped. So was Matvei Michkov’s backhander from behind the goal line that he banked in off the goalie at 2:52 of the second period to make it 3-0 after Brayden Schenn turned the puck over.

Mathew Barzal did find Jean-Gabriel Pageau open in the slot to bring the Islanders within 3-1 at 15:37 of the second period. But it became a three-goal deficit again at 9:16 of the third period on defenseman Travis Sanheim’s open wrister from the left circle.

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.