The reality of the situation was not lost on Bo Horvat.

A humiliating 7-1 loss to an NHL Draft Lottery-bound Sabres squad Monday night dropped the Islanders into last place in the Metropolitan Division and 13th place in the Eastern Conference.

And with 47 games remaining in their 2024-25 season, the runway needed to reverse course in shrinking.

"We got a lot of work ahead of us," Horvat said in the home dressing room at UBS Arena after the loss. "It's not going to be an easy run. It's not going to be an easy road to get back to where we want to get but we have no one to blame but ourselves. We put ourselves in this situation, obviously. It wasn't good tonight."

The tasks awaiting the Islanders when they reconvene at Northwell Health Ice Center for practice Friday morning following the NHL's three-game holiday pause are major in nature if they are to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs for the third straight year and 30th time in franchise history.

Beginning with making up ground in the Eastern Conference playoff race. The Islanders are 16 points behind New Jersey for first in the Metropolitan Division (49-33). They are 15 points behind Washington for second (48-33) and 10 points behind third place Carolina (43-33). Moreover, they trail Tampa Bay by seven points (40-33) and Ottawa by five points (38-33) for the first and second Wild Card slots.

In the NHL's nine full Wild Card seasons -- the NHL reconfigured its playoff criteria during the COVID-19 shortened 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons -- the teams who claimed the East's two Wild Card berths averaged 98.6 and 95.5 points respectively. Using those numbers as a baseline, the Islanders would need to earn between 62 and 65 points in 47 games.

Essentially, they would have to average 1.31 to 1.38 points per game. Currently, they are averaging 0.942 points per game.

One of the reasons the Islanders average less than a point a game is that they have not had a winning streak of longer than two games this season.

So what needs to change?

"It comes with a mindset in here," Horvat said. "It's on us as players to come to work every single night and make a difference and be consistent. We're just not consistent enough in our game and that's a reflection on us in this room."

Developing a home-ice advantage would be a rather useful place to start as the Islanders are 6-8-2 (14 points) at UBS Arena, following the loss to the Sabres.

During his postgame news conference, Patrick Roy pointed at their shot totals and attempted shot totals as positives, but it should also be noted that the Islanders had 30 shots blocked by the Sabres and had 23 giveaways.

"There was no good way to put how that game went. We were garbage from the get-go," Anders Lee said. "Our mistakes. We just turned the puck over too many times tonight. Turned the puck over and lost battles and this is just not a good recipe."

Their long road begins Saturday night at UBS Arena when they host the Pittsburg Penguins.