2 weeks Ago By Ethan Sears
The Islanders needed this one, but more than that, they needed this one in this way. They needed to hold a lead in the third period, something they’ve failed to do in five of the past seven games, and they needed the special teams to thrive after Patrick Roy called the power play “awful” a little more than 24 hours prior in Washington. They needed to overcome those twin blocks which have held the entire season back and they needed to do it yesterday.
No one is circling the wagons after Saturday’s 3-0 win over the Sabres in which the Islanders — finally — jumped through those most rudimentary hoops. Everyone ought to recall they did the same thing just a week ago against the Blues before falling back to the same pitfalls. Turning a season around does not happen in one night.
The Islanders, now 9-10-6, are still a game below NHL-.500, are still out of a playoff spot and have still lost seven more games than they have won. Still, at least they are not spending Sunday contemplating yet another blown lead.
And you can’t start stacking wins without getting one. The special teams are the subhead, but the big deal here is the third period, which the Islanders walked into with a 2-0 lead, fresh off blowing a 4-2 game to the Capitals Friday. That was the mental hurdle in front of a club which had gotten to its game decently enough over the first 40 minutes, despite an 11/7 lineup without Jean-Gabriel Pageau (lower body) or Pierre Engvall, who was made an example of in the form of a healthy scratch.
The Islanders were not doing anything particularly special, but this was not a night for that. They were down in the shot count and the high-danger chance count, but who cares? Could they hold a lead? The sense started to shift after Bo Horvat took what has become the customary third-period penalty for the Islanders, who then not only killed it off, but did not look to be on the back foot at all in doing so. Still, after the puck fell off Brock Nelson’ stick on a sure-thing chance to extend the lead to three with under 10 minutes to go, it was hard not to feel as though this could go the wrong way.
The vibes, however, were defeated courtesy of a clean final three minutes at five-on-six — something that has been a rarity over the last year and change — ending with Simon Holmstrom’s empty-net goal that secured Ilya Sorokin’s first shutout of the season. With that, it won’t go unnoticed that it was the power play — which has been a momentum-sapping device throughout the last couple of weeks — that finally awoke the offense when Anders Lee deflected in Kyle Palmieri’s feed to the crease at 7:23 of the second. Two minutes later, it was Lee feeding Simon Holmstrom on a two-on-one rush to make it 2-0.
And the Islanders threw in a successful penalty kill shortly afterward, holding Buffalo without a shot over the two minutes following Noah Dobson putting the puck over glass. No one is overlooking how undermanned the Islanders are in assessing their current stretch. Rather, it is all the more important for them to execute on special teams when the players who can usually be counted on at five-on-five — Pageau, Mat Barzal, Adam Pelech, Anthony Duclair — are on the shelf.
If this is a one-game anomaly with regard to the specialty units, they will be right back in the same mess sooner rather than later. But at least the Islanders have a win to talk about..
