Here are two opposing but true things the Islanders have relearned the hard way over the past few days: They can get great goaltending and still give up too many goals.
This first principle went by the wayside in a pair of losses this past week — the first in which Ilya Sorokin shut the Devils out at five-on-five and still allowed five goals and the second in which Semyon Varlamov made 40 stops against the Sabres and still allowed three goals.
The Islanders are used to excellence in net and Sorokin has a strong-if-unexplored case to be considered the best athlete in New York.
It is genuinely hard for the goaltender to be the best player in a game where he gives up five goals and loses, but the case was there on Thursday.
Varlamov on Saturday was, without any doubt, the best Islander on the ice.
But both losses betrayed a pattern that was evident all too often last season, where the Islanders used great goaltending to try and cover up for their own defensive issues.
They snuck into the playoffs by a hair last season doing that.
It won’t cut it this time around.
Sorokin’s 2022-23 season was among the best individual seasons by a goaltender in the last decade — by Evolving Hockey’s goals saved above expected metric, it was the best since Henrik Lundqvist in 2009-10.
It is possible and, in fact, likely, that he can both continue playing very well and not reach such an obscene level again.
That is an important factor, and so too is the points total the Islanders finished with last season: 93.
Other than last year’s Panthers, who got in with 92, the last Eastern Conference team to make the playoffs with a point total that low in an 82-game season was the 2015-16 Red Wings.
With Buffalo, Ottawa and Detroit all looking like they will mount greater challenges this year than last, it is unlikely 93 points will be enough this time.
Throwing the weight of the world on the goaltender’s shoulders is not likely to get the Islanders where they need to go.
There must be fewer penalties than the 10 combined trips to the box the Islanders took in the last two games.
There must be less allowance for teams crowding the net — the goalie can’t stop pucks if he can’t see them.
(And some net presence of their own in the offensive zone would do the Islanders a world of good).
The neutral zone needs to be cleaned up.
“Our puck management, it just has to be better,” head coach Lane Lambert said Saturday night. “That’s two nights in a row now where we’re trying — the intentions are good, but unintended consequences come with that. When you turn the puck over in the neutral zone — certainly against fast teams and every team in this league is fast and transitions quickly — then you find yourselves back in your own zone and spending too much time there.”
The Islanders have shown themselves capable of good-enough shot suppression — they smothered Arizona and earned a 1-0 win because of it in the season’s second game.
But teams like the Devils and Sabres — which is to say, teams with designs on the playoffs and beyond — are the ones that matter most here.
The Avalanche, who visit UBS Arena on Tuesday night, won’t represent any kind of a letup.
On paper, goaltending is the one place where the Islanders can claim advantage over 31 other teams.
More often than not, that will keep them in the fight, even when they may not particularly deserve it.
Rely on that advantage too heavily, though, and it looks like a boxing match where one fighter forgot gloves.
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