The Isles just didn’t have it last night.

Plain and simple.

They were flat on defense, failed to keep their legs moving and couldn’t stop a hungry and motivated Hurricanes team that got romped the night before. Six days off may be too long a break in the beginning of the season, but the Islanders just didn’t skate. It wouldn’t have mattered if they had four games in six nights like Carolina did. They committed lazy penalties and even fell for set dump and chase play that resulted in a goal. Any time you do things like that, your chances in victory are quite miniscule to say the least.

Overall, it was definitely not a great game to watch if you’re an Islanders fan.

Scary to think, Bergeron may have been the Isles best player on the ice last night. Despite the fact that he was shooting way too much, the guy played over 20 minutes in an 8-3 loss and was only a -1. That to me says that he at least understands that he has to play more noticeable defense. A few times last night, he was pinching in and trying to help the offense, which made me wonder when he was going to get caught, but he was skating much harder and pushing people around on Carolina, which allowed him to get back on defense. That kind of play is what I expected to see out of the entire Isles defense, but surprisingly, I only really saw Bergeron doing it.

Also, it just felt like there was way too much passing going on during the powerplay and when they actually got quality shots on Grahame, they couldn’t finish. Carolina’s defense was far from perfect, giving up 31 shots, many of them good scoring chances, but Grahame was that good. If this game was closer, he would have been a first star and had a few of them on Sports Center. However, the guy had plenty of support and the Isles just never really got going as a team.

The only line I think really played well during even strength was the Josef Vasicek, Sean Bergenheim and Miro Satan line. Those guys had some jump and at times, early during the game of course, I thought they were going to be the catalysts that got the team back in the game. However, like I just said, no one on the team was finishing in the offensive zone and the Isles never got back in it.

Lastly, Isles fans saw the return of the DP that loves to wander around the net and guess what? Like it usually does, it bit him right in the rear. So far this season, before last night’s game of course, the guy was uber solid, mainly because he kept his arse in the net where it belongs. Why we would decide to go for a stroll against a team like Carolina is beyond me.

Let’s just hope over the next four days, until their next game, they work out these problems and come out much stronger on both ends of the ice.