ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Islanders had seven defensemen in their lineup Sunday, and at times, not one of them looked willing to lay a hit.
It’s been a quiet through line for much of the season, the lack of edge and physicality inherent in their game.
You could see it in the first period Saturday against San Jose, when Ilya Sorokin bailed them out again and again.
You could see it all night Sunday against the Ducks, when Anaheim completed a season sweep over the Islanders 4-1 at the Honda Center on a night when a win would have jumped the Isles over three teams in the standings and put them within two points of a playoff spot.
Too often, the Islanders are too easy to play against.
For a team that built its identity and success over the opposite ethos for much of the era that currently looks to be drawing to a close, this is something that must be addressed in the offseason, when more substantive change is expected to come.
For the present, the Islanders have no choice but make do with what they have, which on Sunday meant defenseman Adam Boqvist lining up as the fourth-line center with Kyle MacLean out due to illness.
Losing MacLean, a straight-line player who can bring some physical energy when he is on his game, did not help matters against Anaheim.
The young, skilled Ducks got up ice early and often against an Islanders team that seemed interested in using only their sticks to defend — no bodies.
Marcus Hogberg, playing his first game since Jan. 25 after being activated from injured reserve earlier in the day, stopped 22 shots.
That including a first-period robbery on Isaac Lundeström with his right skate and a penalty shot from Jansen Harkins, but Hogberg could not keep the house from crumbling all by himself.
Quietly, the Islanders had won four of their past five going into Sunday, but the passivity on display from the jump was straight out of their blowout defeat last week at Madison Square Garden.
Sam Colangelo struck first for Anaheim, beating Hogberg on a free look below the right dot at 17:52 of the first after steady pressure from the Ducks.
Drew Helleson doubled the lead 14:56 into the second with a shot from the right point, where Hogberg appeared to be screened following a sequence in which Pierre Engvall — 0-for-5 at the dots in place of MacLean, with the Islanders electing not to have Boqvist take draws — lost a faceoff.
Just 43 seconds into the third, Mason McTavish extinguished any comeback hopes with a power-play goal off the rush to make it 3-0.
Head coach Patrick Roy’s trademark extremely early goalie pull did not pay off, with Colangelo further extending the lead by putting the puck into an empty net with 11:42 to go in regulation.
Tony DeAngelo broke the shutout with a late goal for the Islanders, but that was the only consolation prize.
It’s going to be an uphill battle for the Islanders in the wild-card race, and it is going to be a strange, transitional six weeks to close out the regular season with Brock Nelson gone.
While no one is giving up on the season, if the eight seed were the be-all and end-all, then Nelson would not have been traded. Everyone should understand that.
Still, even on a back-to-back, and even with a patchwork lineup, this was not a game the Islanders could afford to lose.
And losing Nelson does not account for the lack of defensive structure that was on display at times in San Jose and again in Anaheim.
Exactly what the Islanders are capable of right now is a question that will take time to answer.
But surely it is more than they showed Sunday.