It's been a while since the Islanders played as well as the middle 20 minutes on Saturday.
It's been a long time since the Islanders had a win as great as their 4-3 win over the Hurricanes at UBS Arena.
The pattern for the past few weeks has been for the Islanders to win on Saturdays and lose on other days of the week, so the jury is out on whether this is a real step forward for the last club in the Eastern Conference. Divided. The team eventually crosses the threshold and achieves double-digit wins.
But after the disastrous result that carried over into the first period against the Canes on Thursday, the Islanders were in danger if they didn't pull themselves together — and that's exactly what they did with four goals in the second period. This was done in an explosion.
In particular, the Islanders' reaction to Andrei Svechnikov's second power-play goal of the night, which gave Carolina a 2-1 lead after Anders Lee was incorrectly called for a high stick by Martin Necas, made the team was able to lower its ranking. wearing a hat
Casey Cizikas recovered the puck off the forecheck and Oliver Wahlstrom beat Pyotr Kochetkov to tie the score again just 47 seconds later.
From there, it was all Islanders for the final 10 minutes of the period.
They owned the puck. they won the battle.
They created pressure around the net and in high-danger areas.
It was everything they couldn't do on Thursday, and even more so in Saturday's sluggish opener against Carolina.
As a result, Max Tsyplakov, who hit his own rebound, and Bo Horvath, who stopped J.G. Pageau's feed with a rush to break the drought of 13 games without scoring, scored goals. .
Nevertheless, there is still the not-so-small problem of maintaining a lead, and the less said about the Islanders' recent performance in achieving that, the better.
The Hurricanes did catch up in the third set and held the lead, thanks in no small part to Ilya Sorokin, who was absent from Thursday's game.
That's what the goalie did.
This wasn't going to be a rerun of other blown leads.
This won't be a rematch of multiple playoff games against the Hurricanes over the past two years.
The Islanders' chance to make a comeback came when Anders Lee and Carolina netminder Kochetkov collided in a scramble for the puck and were called for twin interference penalties. Lee, the Islanders bench, and everyone in attendance shared a lack of legitimate understanding on the issue. phone.
But instead of removing the spool, the Islanders slammed the hatch shut.
The Islanders held on and held on for the win despite giving up a 6-on-5 goal to Jesperi Kotkaniemi.
This meant they were able to maintain a lead for the second straight game in the third period. This isn't a big deal, but it certainly is for a team where this is always an issue.
In theory, this is a good building block.
Same goes for the win against the Hurricanes.
But it will be wasted if the Islanders fall into the same pattern as the past few weeks.
