Islanders let one get away in loss to Kraken after blowing third-period lead

SEATTLE — File this one under wins the Islanders let slip through their fingers. 

The Islanders, however, will file it as a win taken from their grasp forcefully, with coach Patrick Roy saying his team “got robbed” after a failed challenge for goaltender interference handed the Kraken a game-winning goal with just over three minutes left in Saturday’s match. 

Either way, the 3-2 loss to the Kraken marks the end of a five-game points streak on an afternoon when the Islanders came out looking confident and playing crisp, but failed to finish enough chances in a game they spent much of the 60 minutes looking like the better team. 

“I love my team tonight,” said Roy, who spent most of his news conference decrying the no-call on Jamie Oleksiak’s goal at 16:47 of the third period. “We played a strong game. Played a solid road game. I thought we had our chances, I thought we possessed the puck, I thought we defended well.” 

That they did, but after taking a 2-1 lead early in the third, the Islanders quickly coughed it up and never regained momentum. For that reason just as much as any referee’s decision, this one felt just as much like a lost opportunity as any game in which the Islanders blew a big lead. And in the midst of a long road trip where they are trying to make up ground despite so many injuries, it hurts even more. 

The Islanders came into the third with the game tied at one, having kept up the same heavy and possession-based hockey they’d played 120 miles north two nights prior. But against a goalie in Joey Daccord who was leaving a few too many rebounds in the middle of the ice, they were failing to capitalize — and would pay for it. 

Brock Nelson broke the tie with a shorthanded goal, getting up ice and sliding the puck past Daccord to give the Isles the lead, but it didn’t last long. 

Less than a minute later, Jared McCann broke free on the rush and scored to tie the game, 2-2. 

But instead of responding with the same zeal they had after Seattle’s first goal, the Islanders started struggling to break the puck out, looking more like a team that would be lucky to survive and get to overtime than one dictating the run of play. 

That they would not do as Oleksiak’s shot trickled through Ilya Sorokin’s pads with 3:13 to go to put the Kraken up 3-2. Then came the controversy. 

Brandon Tanev had been battling with Isaiah George in the blue paint and bumped Sorokin after Oleksiak’s shot was taken. Roy said he was told the contact hadn’t been enough, an explanation he all but openly said he found to be ridiculous. 

“Somebody’s gonna have to tell me what’s enough or not enough,” Roy said. “You’re in the crease or you’re not in the crease by yourself. You bump into the goalie or you don’t bump into the goalie. 

“First time I ever heard that. I guess I didn’t play enough games.” 

Winnable as this one was, that sequence proved crushing, and the interference call was the main subject of conversation afterward. 

“I think it’s my fault,” Sorokin told The Post of the last goal, though he also did not seem to understand the call. 

“I feel like you see a couple different variations of it,” Brock Nelson said. “I think right now it feels like there’s a wide range of what you see getting overturned or not getting overturned. I don’t know if anyone can really tell you for sure one way or another.” 

After the Islanders had played their best game of the season on Thursday night in Vancouver and put together some real momentum for the first time this season, this was a bucket of cold water thrown over the dressing room. 

They owned the middle of the ice in the offensive zone and generated scoring chances for much of this game, playing well below the hashes and forechecking effectively. 

But aside from Pierre Engvall’s first-period goal — which tied the game five minutes after the Kraken had opened a 1-0 lead on Tanev’s feed to Yanni Gourde in the crease — the Islanders reverted back to an early-season trend in which they played effectively, but couldn’t come up with the finishing needed. 

That was costly then and it is costly now, as the Islanders suffered their first regulation loss since Nov. 3 at the Rangers. 

They will take some righteous indignation with them on the flight to Calgary. But that is not quite the same as two points.