After Saturday's 4-3 home loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, New York Islanders coach Jack Capuano lamented the Isles' missed chances in his post-game presser (video embedded above, or accessible at this link).
While he appreciated the comeback effort in the third and relied heavily on the top two lines to mount it, he struck a somber tone and was clearly disappointed in the first-period power plays, the team's inability to finish golden chances that would have altered the game, and their general lack of urgency until the game was almost out of hand.
Andrew MacDonald, in Mark Herrmann's piece in Newsday:
"There wasn't enough urgency there early," said defenseman Andrew MacDonald, who wound up playing 30:25 (Visnovsky played only 5:23). "We were kind of standing around too much. We got burnt a few times. To me, that's unacceptable."
John Tavares was even more pointed, quoted in the same article:
"You know, we talk about steps and all that stuff. We obviously showed what we could do last year, but that’s over. We’ve got to go out and prove ourselves again," he said. "It’s just not consistent enough right now. That’s all there is to it, it’s just not consistent enough."
A spurt late in the game did not mean much to the captain. "We lost the game," Tavares said. "Right now, I don’t think there’s too much to be happy about. We have to come to work on Monday. It’s not good enough to respond the way we did tonight."
More from Capuano's presser:
"Cam Ward played a good game and I don't want to take anything away from him, but I thought we should have put more pressure on him."
Also: "We have some skill on the team, and I don't want to take away from their creativity, but tonight you saw one move too many. When we should have been getting pucks to the net and crashing."
The Isles have the Canucks up next. That won't be any easier.