The Islanders, without two-thirds of their top line and on the heels of two straight losses, did something Saturday afternoon that has become unfortunately out of character for them. They found a way.
Lately — really, all season — it too often has been the opposite. The Islanders had played well in their recent losses, but they came into Saturday having dropped four of five. The door has more or less slammed shut on playoff contention, and the Islanders took another blow before their match against the Blues at UBS Arena started, when Mathew Barzal didn’t make it onto the ice for warmups, missing his fourth straight game, and Anders Lee was announced out for personal reasons.
Nonetheless, the Islanders came away with a grinding 2-1 victory over the Blues, moving to 21-23-8 and gaining some momentum ahead of a grueling week of games.
“I think [today] felt right,” Ryan Pulock said. “Our game, top to bottom, guys doing the right things, playing hard, being physical, engaged, blocking shots. All those little things. And yeah, I think we’re a better team than the standings [show] and that’s on us.”
The Islanders have shown a recent capacity to drive play and control games, even as the inferior team on paper. That was the case against a St. Louis team that’s sitting on 70 points. The Islanders kept it a low-event affair, used physicality to their advantage and making things as hard as possible for the Blues.
It was the Islanders’ kind of hockey — tough and defensive, with the Identity Line getting involved in multiple scrums. That has not worked so well for the Islanders for much of the season, but on Saturday, it did.
“I looked up at the clock one time, shots were like 12-9, and I’m like, this is a hell of a hockey game,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. “Everybody was engaged. … I thought it was exactly the type of game that we can play.”
With just 20 shots on net to their name, the Islanders came away with a relatively painless win.
It wasn’t until the final minutes — when the Blues had pulled within a goal and the Islanders had to lean on Ilya Sorokin to keep the lead intact at six-on-five — that the game looked to be in danger. Sorokin finished with 27 saves, keeping multiple flurries of shots out in the waning moments.
“He’s been spectacular all year,” Pulock said. “He gives us a chance every night and every night he makes saves for us.”
Oliver Wahlstrom started the scoring at 6:36 of the first, notching his first goal in 12 games just seconds after failing to beat Jordan Binnington on a breakaway. Adam Pelech found Wahlstrom down low, and he put one past the St. Louis netminder from a tight angle.
It took just 1:04 into the second for the lead to double. Fielding a rebound in the low slot from Jean-Gabriel Pageau’s shot, Noah Dobson fed Brock Nelson for a power-play goal — Nelson’s 20th tally this season — to make it 2-0.
The Blues got one back with under three minutes to go on Robert Thomas’ goal from a sharp angle in front of the net. That made for a tight last few minutes, but proved to be too little, too late.
The score could have been more lopsided, but Kyle Palmieri had two goals — one in the first period and one in the third — disallowed after video reviews.
With a franchise-record 17 games in March, of which the Islanders lost the first two, the team was in serious need of some kind of positivity. It could be all too easy for the last eight weeks to become a tired slog for a team in the Islanders’ position, with 23 men waiting for their first tee time of the summer.
To their credit, the Islanders have — at least outwardly — stayed focused on the season and on the slim possibility that a miracle run somehow breaks their way. Lately, that’s been clear in their play and against the Blues, they finally turned it into two points.
“We’ve done that for a little bit now,” Casey Cizikas said. “And to prove to ourselves that we could play a full 60, physical, defensive-oriented, get timely goals when we needed to, it’s big for our confidence.”
from WordPress https://ift.tt/G2SXuCM
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment