They tried to applaud and cheer for all the good that happened before this night, and all that might come.
But it was hard for the Coliseum fans to find any enthusiasm on Saturday night, hard to find anything but dourness in the final regular-season game played at this old barn. That's because the Islanders blew third-period leads of 3-1 and 4-3 and suffered an awful 5-4 shootout loss to the Blue Jackets, also blowing their chance at home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
Now they will open their series with the Capitals in Washington, and they're hoping by the time it starts on Wednesday or Thursday night, this disheartening performance will be emotionally behind them.
"This season's over," Johnny Boychuk said, "and now it's time to start the real season."
So the Islanders (47-28-7) finished the year with 101 points, tied with Washington but third in the Metropolitan Division by way of taking more points in their four head-to-head games this season. They had the chance to leapfrog the Capitals after the Rangers defeated Washington earlier in the day and beat them 4-2. But after six combined goals in a wild and sloppy third period, the dagger ruefully came in the fourth round of the skills competition from Cam Atkinson.
"We can't sit back on our heels," said Kyle Okposo, who scored his 18th of the season in the second period, which negated Atkinson's game-opener in the first. "We're not a good team when we do that."
After Eric Boulton and John Tavares scored 55 seconds apart early in the third, the Isles had a 3-1 lead with about 16 minutes to play. But Brandon Dubinsky somehow got one to bounce off Josh Bailey's skate, off the skate of goalie Jaroslav Halak, then off the post and in, giving the playoff-less Blue Jackets (42-35-5) life and cutting the lead to 3-2. Just under two minutes later, Alexander Wennberg scored to tie it, and the 16,170 inside audible dipped.
"They got a bounce," coach Jack Capuano said. "At 10:23 of the third, they didn't have a sniff. We were dominating the game. It was one of those nights."
Nikolay Kulemin got one on a rebound with 4:24 left in the third, giving the Isles a 4-3 lead that seemed good enough. But Scott Hartnell — who was a thorn in their side all night — ran off the bench as the empty-net extra-attacker and got a deflection to beat Halak with 1:35 left, sending it to overtime.
"We would have liked to have home[-ice], but it's over now," Boychuk said. "We can't worry about it."
The only worry now is the Capitals, and not letting this one awful defeat taint the good feelings of a commendable season.
"We have three days, and we're going to the playoffs," Tavares said. "We have a lot of veteran guys here and we're looking forward to the opportunity."
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