LOS ANGELES — The Islanders have come back from down 2-0 to win in each of their first three games following the Olympic break.
Rousing as the drama has been, the Islanders would naturally prefer if they could play with a lead at the start of games.
While their play wasn’t uniformly poor across all three of those first periods, the 2-0 deficits do speak for themselves.
“I feel like the better we’re gonna be on our breakouts, the better we’re gonna be on our D-zone coverage,” coach Patrick Roy told reporters Sunday night. “I think our expected goals against are a little bit high because we made too many turnovers. You know how it works, you make turnovers, technically, it’s a scoring chance. So if we do a better job there, I think we’re gonna [improve] because we’re doing so well on the rush.
“[Off the] rush, we’re top five in the league. But breakouts, we’re bottom of the league. So if we could clean up there, I think that’s gonna help a lot.”
The breakouts were a clear issue early in Sunday’s match against the Panthers.
The Islanders played fairly well defensively, keeping Florida to the perimeter, but couldn’t break the Panthers’ forecheck and possess the puck for any sustained time until the second and third periods.
“How skilled they are, they play an extremely simple game and it’s very effective,” Anders Lee said. “That’s how they’ve won the last two years. They’re the best at it right now. I thought that showed, especially early in the game, how well they play the right way. Once we started doing that, it started to work for us too.”
No one can question the Islanders’ resiliency or their ability to come back in games after doing so three straight times.
But the more they play with fire, the higher likelihood there is that they eventually get burned.
“We can’t get used to it,” Bo Horvat said. “Obviously, we’d like to get off to a bit better start here and play with a lead.”
The win Sunday moved the Islanders to 14 games over NHL .500 for the first time since the end of the 2021 season, per team statistician Eric Hornick.
The Islanders did not hold practice Monday as they flew to California.
This will be the third straight trade deadline they’ve spent on the West Coast.