Tony DeAngelo moved in, Ryan Pulock left after one shift, Ilya Sorokin came in overtime for Marcus Hogberg, and the Islanders continued their momentum with a comeback win against the supercharged Hurricanes. We continued the momentum.
Other than that, not much was happening at UBS Arena on Saturday.
With 48 games in, it's that time of year for the Islanders.
The season is reaching an inflection point in the weeks ahead of the four-nation out-of-order break.
What happens now will determine whether a team looking to prove it is still a contender will get a chance to do so after March 7th.
Storylines abound for this game against the Hurricanes, from the immediate impact of a 3-2 overtime victory over a Carolina team that extends this winning streak to a season-high four games on the back of Brock Nelson's game-winning goal. Let's start. – Exactly what the doctor ordered for the make-or-break homestand equivalent of the season.
By the time the Islanders appeared to be putting their foot down against the Flyers on Friday night, the Hurricanes were already up 2-0 on goals from Jack Roslovic and Sebastian Aho. From behind the net, Isaiah George's skate and in off.
The Islanders cut the lead in half on an Alexander Romanov tally late in the first and spent a hard push in the second, but two poke checks stopped Beauvat and Jean-Gabriel Pageau on a breakaway by Piotr.・Kochetkoff could not be solved.
Breakthrough finally came in third at 6:26. The momentum that the Islanders had steadily built over 30 minutes paid off when Anders Lee stuffed Horvat's first shot into the net.
It opened up a close game with the Islanders, who controlled possession steadily into a track meet, and the teams could trade through the remainder of a very entertaining third period.
It took 3-on-3 overtime to settle the winner, as Andrei Svechnikov's shot off the crossbar was the closest either team came to a winner in regulation. Even that had a twist, as Hogberg (apparently injured) went up the tunnel before going into overtime, yielding the net to Sorokin.
Nelson then netted the winner with a bizarre rush and the whole place went batty.
Even with the Islanders' decent run so far – they've won seven of nine and are playing arguably their best hockey of the season – achieving their goal of making the playoffs remains a long shot It is the longest of all. Most other general managers would have looked at the standings a few weeks ago and pivoted. Not Lou Moriello. Signing Deangelo was another way to double down.
The newly minted No. 4 debuted in tough conditions, being asked to play more than 20 minutes of ice in a system he didn't know, not so much as a full practice. He held his own, which was about as much as anyone could reasonably ask for Deangelo.
But Pulock's injury makes things much more complicated. It was his three-point game in Boston earlier this month that helped push the Islanders into high gear. And his new partnership with Adam Pelec is a near-field factor.
There's no timeline for now, so this could turn out to be nothing. But if Pulock misses an extended period of time, the Islanders have just lost two of their most irreplaceable players in the span of a week.
It was almost ideal for their situation before it became a factor. Now things are even tougher.
Yet they march on.
