The Islanders have lost more than their fair share of games over the past two years, but no team has given them more trouble than the Flyers.
After this evening’s loss, the Isles haven’t beaten Philadelphia since a 4-3 victory at Nassau Coliseum Feb. 12, 2008 — a span of 13 meetings.
The Islanders fell 2-1 to Philadelphia backup goalie Michael Leighton, who stopped 28 shots.
The Isles were unable to build on the success from Saturday’s 3-2 overtime win against the Rangers at the Garden, when they won consecutive games for the first time since a four-game winning streak that ended in early November.
Philadelphia’s Daniel Briere gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead 1:51 into the game, beating Martin Biron with a wrister.
Jon Sim tied the game when he buried a nice feed from Mark Streit passed Leighton 3:35 into the second.
The Isles fell behind for good after Jeff Carter knocked in another wrister, taking advantage of a terrific pass from Scott Hartnell at 16:53 of the second.
Biron, who spent the previous two-plus seasons with the Flyers, hadn’t won a game since beating Carolina on Nov. 13, losing five in a row while receiving little support from his teammates. He played reasonably well in his previous start, a 3-0 loss to the Canadiens on Dec. 19.
“Any goaltender’s job is to win games,’’ Scott Gordon said prior to the game of Biron, who got off to a strong start this season, but had fallen to 2-10-2, with a 3.30 GAA. “He’s probably a little frustrated, but that doesn’t mean he has to personally win the game.”
And Gordon wasn’t too concerned that Biron would let his recent struggles get to him.
“He’s a pretty upbeat guy,” Gordon said. “I’ve never seen him down in the dumps. That’s probably a strength of his. He doesn’t get down on himself.”
That would seem to be an increasingly difficult things to do, considering the way the season has gone for Biron. He was brought in as insurance after Dwayne Roloson was signed and the team was unsure of Rick DiPietro’s availability to start the season.
DiPietro hasn’t been able to make it back to the Isles, still coming back from last year’s knee surgery, but Roloson has emerged as the team’s clear starter. While Biron has been relegated to backup duty and has simply been unable to find any success.
The Isles hung on to beat the Rangers on Saturday but couldn’t duplicate that effort, even though, Biron and the team caught a break 3:06 into the third, when it was ruled that Briere had directed a puck by Biron with his skate. The disallowed goal would have given Philadelphia a 3-1 lead.
As it turned out, the Flyers didn’t need it.