SEATTLE — Lane Lambert’s seat has never been hotter.
Before Thursday’s game in Seattle, Lambert talked about the need to cut down on mistakes, fix the struggling penalty kill and potentially dock players ice time if issues kept going.
Then the Islanders went out and made the same mistakes, kept struggling on the penalty kill and extended their losing streak to seven games with a 4-3 shootout defeat to the Kraken, their eighth loss in nine games, courtesy of Kailer Yamamoto’s shootout winner in the eighth round.
Oh, and they yet again frittered away a game in the third period.
Noah Dobson’s one-timer through traffic broke a 2-2 tie just 1:48 into the final period to put the Islanders ahead.
It also meant the Islanders had to hold a lead for nearly the entire third — something they have not been so adept at doing lately.
And within minutes, they failed in doing so as Anders Lee took a slashing penalty, Kailer Yamamoto got free in front of the crease and tied the game at three at 4:50 of the period.
The Islanders did not lose in overtime for the first time in five tries this year but fared no better in the skills competition.
General manager Lou Lamoriello is not on this trip, having gone home after general manager meetings in Toronto on Tuesday.
But it is hard to think he is not at least considering a change behind the bench with the Islanders now 5-6-5, stuck in seventh in the Metropolitan Division and in danger of seeing their season evaporate by Thanksgiving.
Lamoriello last made an in-season coaching change in 2015, when he fired Pete DeBoer from the Devils over the holidays and installed a two-man coaching system of Adam Oates and Scott Stevens for the rest of the way.
After facing Calgary on Saturday, the Islanders have three days off before their next game, making it a logical time to make a change if one is in the offing.
Regardless of whether Lamoriello pulls the trigger on such a move or not, it is abundantly obvious that something needs to change for the Islanders to turn their season around.
The Islanders took the lead on Thursday when Anders Lee broke a 10-game scoreless streak on the power play just 3:46 in. But they coughed it up right away when Scott Mayfield took a pair of penalties and the kill — which gave up three goals on Wednesday in Vancouver — faltered on both of them.
First, Matty Beniers beat Semyon Varlamov clean with a wrist shot. Then Alex Wennberg finished a cross-crease feed from Oliver Bjorkstrand and what had been a promising start to the evening was up in smoke before the first intermission.
Casey Cizikas, however, pulled the Islanders back into a tie game when he finished off a feed from Mathew Barzal at 14:25 of the second period. But that just served to set up another disappointing third period.
Like the night before in Vancouver, the Islanders played a relatively even game at five-on-five.
The lone lineup change, Hudson Fasching drawing in for Matt Martin (upper body) worked fine as Fasching played a solid game on the fourth line.
But like Wednesday night, a relatively fine game was not enough to walk away with two points.
Exactly what will result in two points, Lambert and the Islanders need to figure out — and soon.
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