Islanders remain winless on road trip after blowout loss to Hurricanes

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Islanders lost another one on Thursday night and are in danger of taking an oh-fer on their first extended road trip of the season.

And it was all self-inflicted.

On the ice, the Islanders allowed three goals on the first eight shots they faced and ultimately failed to measure up against the Hurricanes, one of the Eastern Conference’s legitimate Stanley Cup contenders, in a 6-2 loss at Lenovo Center.

“Our team got better, but we [have more to our game than what we showed],” Matthew Schaefer said. “We didn’t start off the best. We can clean up on a lot of mistakes.”

Off the ice — for that’s where Mathew Barzal was kept as punishment — the day started with the top-six center being late for the team bus to the morning skate and being held out of the lineup for disciplinary reasons.

“It was a pretty honest mistake,” captain Anders Lee told Newsday. “I don’t think any of us fault him for it. It’s one of those ones where stuff happens. It’s just a standard we have, but no one blames Barzy. It was pretty minor.”

Still, that situation was compounded when expected AHL Bridgeport call-up Cal Ritchie was unable to make it to Raleigh because his flight was canceled due to the poor weather in New York.

That forced coach Patrick Roy to use defenseman Adam Boqvist in a fourth-line role, with the Islanders without a healthy extra forward with Max Shabanov (upper body) not traveling with the team.

So the Islanders (4-5-1) slipped back below .500 three games removed from a four-game winning streak. They are 0-2-1 on this road trip, which concludes on Friday night in Washington.

“You don’t want to lose three in a row,” defenseman Ryan Pulock said. “We did that at the start of the year and we were able to bounce back. It’s going to be important we bring that [Friday] and understand where we’re at and find our best effort.”

Ilya Sorokin, who has allowed four goals in five of his seven starts, will be back in net after David Rittich suffered his first loss as an Islander in three appearances.

Rittich made 27 saves and was better after his rocky start. But that proved too much for the Islanders to overcome, especially with Sound Beach’s Brandon Bussi stopping 26 shots in his fourth NHL start for the Hurricanes (7-3-0). He became the second Long Island netminder, after Farmingville’s Keith Kinkaid, to face the Islanders.

The Islanders had taken two-goal leads in each of the first two games of this trip, Saturday’s 4-3 shootout loss in Philadelphia and Tuesday’s 5-2 loss to the Bruins.

This time they played from behind after the Hurricanes scored three in the opening 10:21.

“A little sloppy at the start,” Roy said. “A couple of bad turnovers. We can’t turn the puck over in the pocket. Too bad, because I thought we were resilient.”

Rookie Bradly Nadeau beat Rittich past his glove from the left circle for his first NHL goal at 2:33. Former Islanders defenseman Mike Reilly scored on a shorthanded wraparound at 5:21 as Rittich was slow going post to post. Jordan Martinook then pushed a loose puck in the crease in at 10:21.

Schaefer’s power-play goal cut it to 3-1 at 13:20, but the Islanders generated only two high-danger chances in the second period, according to NaturalStatTrick.

Jackson Blake extended the lead to 4-1 at 1:51 of the third period from the high slot. Simon Holmstrom scored at 10:48 of the third period, but Andrei Svecnikov skated around Schaefer to make it 5-2 only 11 seconds later.

That seemed to sum up the Islanders’ day as a whole.

“You don’t want it to happen, but it does happen,” Roy said. “Schaefer is going to learn. This is a learning process for him.”

Notes & quotes: Schaefer played in his 10th NHL game, triggering the first season of his entry-level contract and virtually ensuring that he’ll remain with the Islanders for the whole season . . . Laurel Hollow’s Marshall Warren was the healthy scratch after the defenseman was pulled off the ice for the morning skate. He likely was headed back to Bridgeport before Ritchie’s travel issues.

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.