Burned by so many previous examples in the first third of the season, it was hard not to greet the Islanders’ home-and-home with the basement-dwelling Chicago Blackhawks with dread. Surely, with an opportunity to take four points from a bad team that was playing three times in the same span, the Islanders would mess up.
They messed up.
So here we are, with Mat Barzal and Adam Pelech returning to the lineup, yet they found a way to lose, and cruelly.
Connor Bedard’s goal in the final minute of regulation — to take away any standings points, much less two — was the killer, but leaving him an opening after an icing was just one of multiple mistakes that ended up in the Islanders’ net.