BUFFALO — If Friday night represented some of the best the NHL regular season can offer, then it’s a good thing college football dominates the ratings on Saturdays.
As for the people who did tune into Islanders-Sabres, they were treated to the first regulation loss of the season for the Islanders, 3-1, and a mess of one at that.
Playing on a back-to-back for the first time all season, the Islanders played low-energy and low-intensity hockey — never establishing a forecheck and rarely getting the puck deep.
They were thoroughly outshot, spared from worse only by a strong night in goal from Semyon Varlamov, and for a second straight night took bad penalties.
It took the Sabres until 16:37 into the second period to solve Varlamov, when Jeff Skinner’s right-circle one-timer beat the goalie following Casey Mittelstadt’s feed from the crease, but that goal was a long time coming and once the dam opened, the Islanders couldn’t close it.
The Islanders did not record double-digit shots in either of the first two periods, despite getting four chances on the power play. They made sloppy mistakes the night before against New Jersey, but the lack of oomph in their game made Saturday worse.
Mattias Samuelsson extended the Buffalo lead to two less than three minutes after Skinner’s opener, beating Varlamov from the slot after a loose puck squirted his way.
Less than three minutes into the third, Dylan Cozens put a bow on it, finishing Rasmus Dahlin’s pass across the crease after the defenseman skated in unimpeded.
Noah Dobson’s goal with 1:21 to go served as a mere consolation prize.
A week after walking out of UBS Arena with a feel-good opening night win over these very same Sabres, the Islanders got on a flight home with some real questions to answer for the first time this season.
Inserting Oliver Wahlstrom into the lineup to play on the first line did not yield any results — Wahlstrom, still not quite himself after offseason knee surgery, was less involved than Simon Holmstrom.
Julien Gauthier, who made his Islanders debut on the third line, didn’t get himself involved either.
Varlamov, at least, looked sharp, stopping 40 of 43 shots. For the second straight night, however, good goaltending was not enough — and this time, it wasn’t even close to enough.
But in a sloppy first period, the most ominous sign came early on.
After Lane Lambert delivered a harsh rebuke of the penalties his team took Friday night, Ryan Pulock was sent off for tripping just 15 seconds into the game.
The Islanders killed off the subsequent penalty, but the tone was set for a sloppy night nonetheless.
One bad game does not erase three mostly-good ones, and every team will put up a few terrible ones over an 82-game season.
But for the first time in this young season, the Islanders have some adversity to overcome.
