Islanders left with plenty of unanswered questions after breakup day

The roster of guys who didn’t talk on breakup day said it all. Anthony Duclair, who didn’t play the season’s last eight games after Patrick Roy called him out in extraordinarily harsh terms, didn’t address reporters, with an Islanders spokesman declining to say whether Duclair was even on the premises.Roy didn’t talk either.

Nor did general manager Lou Lamoriello.Pierre Engvall wasn’t there because his wife is having a baby — an excused absence, to be clear, but one that’s pretty on the nose. There will be recriminations for this disappointing Islanders season, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if any or all of those four were on the wrong end of them.

For now, there’s a whole lot unanswered about how the club will move forward after missing the playoffs. The themes from those who did talk Saturday: The Islanders felt they lacked consistency and identity; the failures to close out games early in the season were brought up again and again; so were both special teams after the power play and penalty kill each ranked 31st in the league. “It’s having that confidence in ourselves,” Casey Cizikas said.“I think it’s learning and knowing that we can close out games when we need to.

Not giving up late goals or giving up leads and things like that, having that confidence in ourselves and in our group that we can get the job done, put teams away when we need to.That’s something we need to learn how to do.” It doesn’t feel like it, especially to the players themselves, but it’s been a long time since the Islanders consistently executed the style of play they rode to two NHL final fours under Barry Trotz.

Whether in the playoffs or not, they’ve been in the league’s mushy middle for four seasons now. Closing out games, the penalty kill, the power play — these aren’t new issues.Trading for Bo Horvat was supposed to fix the power play.

That was 2 ½ seasons ago.Hiring Roy was supposed to help all of the above and didn’t; the he...