Islanders falter against Canucks for third straight loss down the stretch

The stakes on Wednesday night were aptly laid out by Hudson Fasching after the Islanders finished their morning skate.

“For a while, we’ve been telling ourselves, ‘Hey, we’re not out of this, we’re not out of this,’ ” Fasching said. “Now it’s like, all right, we’re officially in this now.”

Yes they are and Wednesday was when the Islanders could have finally laid down a long-awaited symbolic marker in this playoff race, with the team knowing ahead of time that a win would — at least temporarily — put them above the Canadiens for the last wild-card spot in the East.

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The Islanders are very much in this.

But the aftermath of Wednesday’s game, a 5-2 loss to the Canucks, felt like so many other times this year when they looked down and out of it.

“We can play better,” Max Tsyplakov said. “Today’s not our day.”

A homestand that started with triumphant vibes last Thursday ended on a three-game losing streak in three games the Islanders led, Ilya Sorokin getting pulled after allowing four goals on 19 shots and the Islanders’ power play looking as terrible as it has all season.

So not only were the Islanders missing the mental boost that would have come with seeing themselves in a playoff spot for the first time since Nov. 19.

They are staring down the barrel of a tough weekend back-to-back in Tampa and Carolina needing to put their momentum back together again.

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Comparatively speaking, it is of some help that every other team in the chase is going through it right now.

The Islanders are not being judged against the almighty, they are being judged against Montreal, the Rangers, Columbus and Detroit.

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At an earlier point in the season, Wednesday’s loss would have been easily hand-waved.

The Islanders played well for long stretches in the first two periods of this game, they ran into a red-hot Thatcher Demko in Vancouver’s net and couldn’t recover momentum after the Canucks got things rolling.

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Indeed, that was more or less the message from coach Patrick Roy afterward.

“We had our chances and we didn’t bear down and they did,” Roy said. “I feel like that was the difference after the second period and the third was the same thing. … Thought it was a hard-fought game where there wasn’t much for either team.”

That’s not wrong, only this is Game 71 of the season, and no one cares if you ran into a hot goalie.

More than that, as well as Demko played, the Islanders can look to themselves for failing to find the right play on a number of odd-man rushes in this one, and for losing hold of the game after taking a 2-1 lead in the second.

In his first game at UBS since being included in the Jan. 2023 deal for Bo Horvat, Aatu Raty got things moving for Vancouver by tipping Marcus Pettersson’s shot past Ilya Sorokin to tie the game at two at 13:59 of the second.

An Islanders lapse in concentration with 23 seconds to go in the period allowed Derek Forbort a look off the rush, on which the defenseman promptly put the Canucks up 3-2 going into the third.

That was one Sorokin should have stopped.

So was Teddy Blueger’s look from the left circle just 1:03 into the third — and after it went in to extend Vancouver’s lead to 4-2, Roy gave his goalie the hook. By then, the urgency had all but left the Islanders.

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“I didn’t change him because he had a bad game. I changed him because sometimes it’s good to change the momentum of the game,” Roy said. “I was hoping it would create a spark.”

“Maybe I played not perfect, but [the last two goals were] good shots,” Sorokin told The Post. “I try to do what I do. But sometimes it doesn’t work.”

There were chances to get back into this game, namely two power plays in the third period.

But the Islanders power play is going through a dreadful spell at the moment, even by the standards of the league’s 32nd-ranked group at five-on-four, and could barely cobble together zone entries — let alone start a comeback.

Shortly after the Islanders’ last unsuccessful power play, Kiefer Sherwood’s empty-netter sealed the result at 5-2. Opportunity lost. To Florida the Islanders go.