John Tavares might have all the faith in the world in New York Islanders head coach Jack Capuano, but the team’s fan base can be forgiven if they’re praying for changes. The Isles lost their fifth consecutive game on Friday, and it wasn’t pretty, as the Detroit Red Wings dismissed them 5-0.
Really, the Islanders might just be thankful when November is over. They’ve now lost 10 of their last 12 games - all of those defeats coming in regulation - and have only won one regulation game in that span. The Isles’ last victory of any kind came in a 5-4 shootout win against these Red Wings on Nov. 16.
Daniel Alfredsson enjoyed his 1,200th career NHL game at the Islanders’ expense, scoring his fifth and sixth goals of 2013-14 while also collecting his 13th assist.
At this point, PHT is getting the chance to stock up on pictures of sad Kevin Poulin, as he’s been absorbing most of the abuse in net.
Really, you can cast the net pretty widely if you’re playing the blame game. Let’s exclude bigger picture questions (the arena, owner Charles Wang?) and just look at the more immediate scapegoats:
- Poulin, who dropped to 3-10-0 with lousy individual numbers.
- Capuano, who keeps starting Poulin and seemingly cannot find an answer for the Isles’ troubles.
- GM Garth Snow, who decided to stick with an aging goalie in Evgeni Nabokov and didn’t provide him with an experienced backup. Oh yeah, Snow also gambled with the team’s 2014 first-rounder in that Thomas Vanek trade, so Isles fans can’t even distract themselves with prospect talk.
Either way, these are dark times for the Islanders and their fans.