WINNIPEG, Manitoba — The Islanders are a much better team than they were a month ago.
But the gap between them and the league’s best — the gap between them and these Jets — is still big enough to show up over 60 minutes, and to stop the Islanders from starting another winning streak.
The story of this 4-3 defeat at Canada Life Centre, the Islanders’ second loss in their past three, was a story of one top line that had it rolling and another that didn’t.
The Jets’ top trio of Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele and Gabe Vilardi put in two goals at five-on-five and pressed the issue all night long.
Anders Lee, Bo Horvat and Anthony Duclair’s line, by comparison, didn’t score and were on for two goals against, with Horvat and Duclair on for a third to boot.
All other context aside, that’s a tough dichotomy to overcome on any night.
The Islanders have been getting contributions from their back end and bottom six, and they did so again on Friday when their first two goals came via Simon Holmstrom and Marc Gatcomb.
Their stars have generally played solid hockey over the past month, but ever so quietly, the top line has trailed off.
Horvat still is producing at just under one point per game over the last 10, but Lee — the Isles’ best offensive performer just about all season — has just three points over the same period.
Duclair, who’s been elevated to the top group since Mathew Barzal got hurt last weekend, still has yet to make an imprint since returning from a presumed groin injury in mid-December, and again was not noticeable Friday.
Throw that into an already tough matchup against a league-leading Winnipeg club and you have the sort of game that played out Friday night, in which the Islanders hung tight and played at the Jets’ speed for portions of the match, but were ultimately just plain overmatched.
After the Islanders seized a 2-1 lead in the first, the Jets took back control with three straight goals in a dominant second.
Two came from Vilardi, who got behind Adam Boqvist off the rush to tie the game at two, then hit the underside of the crossbar — the puck crossing the line — to take advantage of a discombobulated 30 seconds for the Islanders that made it 4-2.
In between, Nikolaj Ehlers ripped in Cole Perfetti’s feed from behind the net to give the Jets a 3-2 lead at the 14:50 mark, with the Winnipeg crowd chanting “New York sucks” in the background.
The Islanders did cut the lead back to one on Kyle Palmieri’s goal at 11:07 of the third, but that did not portend a comeback.
Casey Cizikas looked to have the tying goal on his stick with just under eight minutes to go, but Connor Hellebuyck stopped his shot from the right post.
The Islanders got a third power-play chance of the last period a couple minutes later and despite generating far more than they did on the first two, they could not solve Hellebuyck there either.
The Islanders had jumped into an early lead off Holmstrom’s goal off the rush, then took back the initiative on Gatcomb’s goal after Alex Iafallo tied it.
This, however, was not going to follow the same trend as most of the last month.
The Islanders have come a long way — as a team and in the playoff race — since the new year. But they’ve still got a long way to go before they can beat a team like this one.
