The New York Islanders were less than two minutes from snapping their seven-game losing skid on Thursday when a fluke bounce allowed the Edmonton Oilers to tie the game, and later pick up the shootout win.

Connor McDavid scored with 1:50 left in the game after his centreing attempt from behind the redline deflected off Brandon Davidson's stick, hit goaltender Christopher Gibson's mask and dropped into the net. 

“It was just one of those bounces you wish you could have back,” Davidson told Newsday. “It’s frustrating. It seems like that’s kind of been almost like a theme.”

“It’s frustrating," added Gibson, who made 35 saves in his fourth career start. "They got a lucky bounce there at the end.”

The shootout loss dropped the Islanders to seven points back of the Columbus Blue Jackets for the final wild-card spot and marked an eighth straight defeat for the club. Head coach Doug Weight said he had no words to describe the team's recent skid in the stretch drive.

“No, I don’t. I don’t,” Weight told Newsday after the loss. “Nothing. I can’t.”

The Islanders have recorded a point in four of their losses during the skid, including each of the past three games, but have failed to come through in the clutch.

“It’s extremely hard to believe,” defenceman Thomas Hickey added. “Good teams find a way to close those games out. We’re trying to be a good team. It’s that hump you have to get over.”

Gibson has stopped a total of 82 shots over his past two starts for a .953 save percentage. After his team's latest loss, Weight was uninterested in talking about the team's goaltending situation.

“That’s like the second-hardest thing to think of after a loss like that,” he said. “The first is getting cameras shoved in your face after the eighth straight loss. That’s the hardest thing for me to deal with, personally. I’m not good at it yet.”