The fourth line, regardless of how Patrick Roy configures it, has been a black hole for the Islanders all season.
Thanks in part to injuries and in part to Roy repeatedly changing things around, there hasn’t been a consistent trio at the bottom of the lineup.
The absence of a fourth line that can impact games has stuck out for a team that, for the better part of the last decade, derived its identity from the Matt Martin-Casey Cizikas-Cal Clutterbuck trio.
Saturday’s 6-3 win over the Maple Leafs, though, finally provided some hope on that front, with the trio of Kyle MacLean, Cizikas and Hudson Fasching recording an 8-3 margin on shot attempts while playing the sort of forechecking, high-energy hockey that the Islanders want from their fourth line.
It came just a few nights after Patrick Roy was happy with the line’s effort in a 4-0 loss to the Hurricanes.
“They played really well in Carolina, that’s why we kept them together again tonight,” Roy said prior to the win in Toronto. “.. [Against the Hurricanes] I thought they had a lot of good chances, good looks, they only had one shift that was tough on them. The rest, they played a really good game. That’s the energy we want from them.”
It’s a small sample, but there are a few reasons to be optimistic it can last.
Namely that this trio has barely played together this season, with Cizikas having been forced to play up on the third line and Fasching going in and out of the lineup for much of the campaign.
Prior to the Carolina game, the Isles used this fourth line just once all year, with Martin having been a lineup fixture for most of the last seven weeks.
Cizikas — a fourth-liner for most of his career — has struggled playing up the lineup while Martin, who did not make the team initially after signing a PTO in camp, has looked the part of a 35-year-old playing limited ice time.
Playing a completely healthy forward lineup for the first time since Oct. 19, nobody looked out of place for the Islanders against the Leafs.
Perhaps that means a good night from the fourth line is more than a meaningless one-off.
The Sabres, who lost in Boston on Saturday, come into Long Island with a 13-game losing streak — the third-longest such streak in franchise history.
If they lose to the Islanders, it will tie their second-longest losing streak, a 14-game stretch in 2014-15.
Saturday’s win over the Maple Leafs was the first penalty-free Islanders game since Nov. 1, 2015 against the Sabres, per team statistician Eric Hornick.