ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Islanders came back from two-goal deficits three times in a row following the Olympic break. They couldn’t make it a fourth.
Not on Wednesday night in Anaheim, where the Isles were outphysicaled and outplayed by the young and ever-impressive Ducks, falling 5-1 at the Honda Center minus Ryan Pulock to snap a five-game winning streak that spanned either side of the three-week break.
Interestingly, the Islanders had the edge in the shot count all night long, which belied how this game truly went. The Islanders’ chances were largely on the outside, whereas Anaheim worked inside and below the hash marks, getting to the danger areas and establishing a forecheck.
Pulock’s absence with an upper-body injury, which is not expected to be for long, cast a shadow over this one from the start.
Matthew Schaefer did not seem to click with Scott Mayfield as Pulock’s replacement, and Patrick Roy quickly ceded to rotating through his six defensemen.
The Islanders, though, never did seem to find satisfactory answers for Anaheim’s top two lines, and in particular the trio of Chris Kreider, Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier — a handful all night long.
The Isles trailed 3-1 after the first, a relatively comfortable spot given their last three games, but the score stayed put through 40 minutes despite a trio of Islander power plays in the middle frame that produced next to nothing.
It took just over two minutes of play in the third for Anaheim to strike a dagger in the notion of another comeback. Ryan Poehling poked in Ryan Strome’s feed at the right post to make it 4-1, all but putting the game out of reach, just 2:11 into the third.
David Rittich, who bailed the Islanders out a handful of times early in the game, has now allowed four goals in four of his last six starts.
The goaltender, though, was pulled with 8:34 to go in the game as Roy tried to push his team into a comeback.
Instead, Frank Vatrano scored into the empty net to make it 5-1 and send the Honda Center crowd home with free chicken.
The Islanders did get on the board first when Anders Lee followed his own tipped shot on a power play, but gave it right back on the penalty kill when Gauthier’s one-timer beat David Rittich at 12:56 of the period.
Gauthier struck again, this time at five-on-five, a few minutes later off Carlsson’s feed on the rush, and Beckett Sennecke — the other star rookie on the ice Thursday — further extended the lead at the 18:40 mark, putting in Ian Moore’s rebound after a tip from Mason McTavish.
Struggles on breakouts are nothing new for the Islanders, but it’s rare to see a team be as physically dominant as Anaheim was Wednesday. Schaefer, missing his usual partner, never seemed to get his game going, and aside from the odd shift here and there, neither did the Islanders’ top line.
Resilient as this team has been of late, a number of players said after the win over Florida on Sunday that the preference would be to not be down two goals at all.
The Isles will need to take that goal into Thursday night’s match against the Kings. They didn’t accomplish it Wednesday.