Islanders still look disjointed despite injury returns in brutal loss to lowly Blackhawks

CHICAGO — Meet the healthier Islanders, same as the injured Islanders.It’s never simple, never easy and there’s always disappointment right around the corner.If anyone thought Sunday was the chance for the Islanders to write the first chapter of the turnaround of their season, with Mat Barzal and Adam Pelech back in the lineup, with the chance to get above NHL .500, with the chance to get into a playoff spot and with an opponent at the bottom of the league, all those aspirations went “splat” into the United Center ice.The Islanders instead put forth a disjointed and disconnected performance, losing 5-3 to the Blackhawks on Connor Bedard’s late winner as the guys they were still missing — namely Bo Horvat and Anthony Duclair — stuck out more than the guys who returned.Whatever the health status of the lineup, failing to sweep this home-and-home that looked like such a golden schedule opportunity will haunt the Islanders.When they lost in this building last year, the head coach got fired the next day.

Patrick Roy is in no such danger, but that his team cannot put forth a consistent or cohesive enough game to stack points even when the schedule is light tells you that the problems when he took over last January extended far beyond the head coach — and a whole lot of them still aren’t fixed.The overriding theme in this one was the Islanders’ inability to string passes, combined with messy defensive-zone structure.That was not helped by Barzal, who looked early on like he was still very much working his way into things and mishit passes out of the offensive zone no less than four times in the first 20 minutes.But he was far from the only culprit — this was a team effort in every sense.Still, a 3-2 deficit going into the third period following Teuvo Teravainen’s go-ahead, five-on-three goal looked manageable.Indeed it was, as Noah Dobson cut to the slot and finished through traffic to tie the game just 47 seconds into the third period.Where the...