Islanders shut out Flyers for pivotal win as wild-card race remains airtight
One-hundred-and-twenty minutes are left in this Islanders season, which has been most characterized by teetering, and their playoff aspirations are still hanging on the ever-so-tight thread of their own play.
Teeter those aspirations did on Saturday, when the Islanders temporarily dipped below the cutline after the Penguins beat the Red Wings in the afternoon.
They jumped back into a playoff spot with their 4-0 victory Saturday night over the Flyers, the result of which was without doubt by the second intermission.
That left the third period for scoreboard watching, which did yield some drama when Matthew Tkachuk scored a late winner to haul the Panthers past the Capitals.
That brought a particularly inconvenient Florida winning streak to six games and kept the Panthers ahead of the Islanders for the first wild-card spot.
“That sucks,” Noah Dobson said after he was informed of Florida’s victory in the Islanders’ locker room. “But no, we know what situation we’re in. At the end of the day, you want to have control in your own hands, and we [have] that. … If we keep winning, we’re gonna be in a good spot.”
The Islanders would rather not be on this particular seesaw so late in the season, but the good news is that all they need are three points from their last two games, at Washington on Monday and home against Montreal on Wednesday.
A regulation loss in either game, however, could make for a long Thursday in front of the television, because the Penguins and Panthers, their competition for the wild card spots, will finish their seasons that night.
As for the Islanders’ win over the Flyers, it started tilting heavily in their direction during the second period, when quick-strike transition passing, melded with a heavy forecheck to limit Philadelphia to four shots over 20 minutes.
The Islanders scored twice in the same span to break the game open.
“I thought we made some pretty good stretch passes, some pretty nice plays,” coach Lane Lambert said. “I thought Dobson was outstanding in that area. There was probably five or six times when we went from our goal line all the way to the far blue line.”
Dobson found Brock Nelson with a laser of a feed that traveled from the Islanders’ own goal line diagonally to the red line.
It traversed the entire Flyers’ defense corps and let Nelson walk in alone for the 2-0 goal 7:50 into the second.
After a power-play goal from Zach Parise was overturned due to a high stick, the Islanders wasted little time getting it back.
Samuel Bolduc pounced on Bo Horvat’s pass and unleashed a wrist shot for his second NHL goal and an unimpeachable 3-0 lead. Hudson Fasching added a goal late in the third for good measure.
Simon Holmstrom had his first assist in 46 games, dating to Nov. 25 in Columbus, then notched the secondary assist on Bolduc’s goal to finish with two.
It was a good time for it.
“I think they’re skating,” Lambert said of the first line, which is in need of a breakout. “I think Bo’s skating better. I think Holmstrom has shown some confidence, a couple assists tonight, he’s starting to make some plays. And I thought Anders Lee … had one of his better games here tonight.”
Scott Mayfield’s first-period shot from the point got the Islanders on the board first, though the Flyers largely controlled the opening 20 minutes.
To that point, the Islanders were playing with fire more than they might like early on, with their defense corps, minus the injured Alexander Romanov, rotating through pairs and struggling to break the puck out with some frequency.
The answer to those struggles, on Saturday as all year, was Ilya Sorokin, who finished with 27 saves and a league-leading sixth shutout.
“That first goal was big for us just to turn the tide and tilt it over,” Fasching said. “We knew we had the ability to be the better team. They had some shots but I don’t feel like they were high-quality scoring chances, necessarily. Just a lot of pucks thrown at the net and kinda chaos ensued after that.
“I think we were having the better of the play. Eventually it was just kind of, we needed one to go. That was the tipping point.”
There are two more chances for this race to teeter some more, though the Islanders would rather see it hold taut.