To watch every night where some NHL team scores 5, 6, 7 goals — sometimes in a losing effort — while the Islanders struggle along with a snakebit shooting drought (league-low 6.9 shooting %) and barely conjure two goals per game, is to feel the full wrath of the hockey gods.
Everything is going wrong for the Islanders right now — bad luck, injuries, COVID, strong division, probably the road trip factor, etc. — but longtime realists know things can change, so much so that a team that has a decent but still one-in-whatever chance of reaching the final four can actually do so and pump us up in consecutive years.