The New York Islanders entered the NHL’s Christmas break with a remarkable thud, following up one of their best (and all too rare) performances of the season in Toronto with an embarrassing crash in front of home-for-the-holidays fans against the Buffalo Sabres. The visitors ended their own 13-game winless spiral with a 7-1 thumping of the Isles.
It’s been a frustrating, maddening, yet somehow dull first 35 games for Isles fans, but if you squinted at them through a certain lens and a healthy helping of benefit of the doubt, you could at least say injuries kept us from seeing what they might be capable of.