Islanders continually blowing third-period leads is wasting their injury resiliency

CALGARY, Alberta — It’s not going to be the injuries that derail the Islanders season.Even with nearly a third of their opening-night lineup on the shelf, the issue for the Islanders is the same it’s been for over a year: They are leaving points on the table by blowing third-period leads and winnable games.The way the Islanders have responded without Mathew Barzal, Anthony Duclair, Alexander Romanov, Adam Pelech or Mike Reilly in the lineup has been, for the most part, excellent.If anything, they are playing better hockey now than they were when healthy — a testament to the resiliency in the dressing room and organizational depth that took a step in the right direction this offseason.Isaiah George has been a revelation on defense, the revamped top line has blown past expectations, Pierre Engvall has responded in the right way to his early-season demotion to the AHL.

The Islanders played their best game of the season in Vancouver on Thursday night and, early in Saturday’s game against the Kraken, looked like they were picking up where they left off.Even with a different lineup, though, this turned into the same movie.The Islanders appeared to have seized momentum in the third period, when Brock Nelson put them ahead, 2-1, with a shorthanded goal.Just 37 seconds later — after Seattle’s power play had ended — a miscommunication defending the rush gave Jared McCann an opening to tie it right back up again.There was a lot of righteous indignation afterward over the failed challenge for goalie interference on Jamie Oleksiak’s game-winning goal, with coach Patrick Roy saying the Islanders “got robbed,” and it’s undeniably true that the league has a problem with its haphazard and inconsistent enforcement of that rule.All that conversation, though, belied that the Islanders never should have been in a situation to give up the game in the last five minutes to begin with.They played up ice for most of the afternoon.

At five-on-five, they recorded 61.5...