ELMONT, N.Y. — Second place in the Metropolitan Division was on the line, but tired legs ensured Saturday night’s clash between the New York Islanders and Philadelphia Flyers looked like a meeting of two teams much lower in the standings. Tyson Foerster scored the only goal of a four-round shootout, potting a wrister over Ilya Sorokin, to lift the Flyers (11-9-1) to a 1-0 victory over the Islanders (8-6-6) at UBS Arena and finish an energy-sapping four-night stretch in which both teams played three games.
“I thought the effort was outstanding. I’m proud of our team,” Islanders head coach Lane Lambert said. “We’ve played a lot of hockey lately, traveled a lot lately including last night.”
Sorokin, who was tested far more than Flyers backup netminder Samuel Ersson, made 40 saves in regulation and overtime. Ersson turned away all 25 he faced, and both were credited with shutouts after a frenzied overtime period that saw the Islanders send five quality scoring chances wide of the net.
The result extends the Islanders’ point streak to six consecutive games but ends their win streak at three.
“You just have to score,” Lambert said of his team’s overtime struggles as the Islanders dropped to 0-5 in extra-time games. “We clearly had ample opportunities to end the game in overtime… we’ve had great scoring chances so we have to get over that hump and find a way.”
Both sides were clearly not fresh as they were on the second legs of back-to-backs. The Islanders defeated the Senators in Ottawa 5-3 on Friday night while the Flyers fell 3-1 to the Rangers in Philadelphia. It was also the third game in four nights for both teams — a stretch that began with an Islanders 3-2 win over the Flyers on Wednesday night.
“I think both teams on the back-to-back, it was pretty ugly,” Islanders captain Anders Lee said. “It got better as the game went on, especially in overtime there were some chances on either side but it was just one we had to try to grit out and it wasn’t pretty at all. Just came up short.”
New York, however, was especially sapped on defense. They played with four blueliners on Friday after Adam Pelech and Sebastian Aho went down with injuries. Pelech was placed on LTIR on Saturday while Aho was also unavailable, forcing the team to play Samuel Bolduc and recall Grant Hutton from Bridgeport.
It forced the Islanders’ top defensemen into another laborious night. After playing 31:05 on Friday, Noah Dobson was on the ice for another 2841 on Saturday — a total of 59:46 minutes in roughly 24 hours.
“[I’ve never played that much], not in the NHL,” Dobson said. “Maybe back in junior days, but those are easier minutes. But yeah, a lot of hockey.”
Ryan Pulock played 52:20 over the last two games, Alexander Romanov played 52:54, and Scott Mayfield went for 47:29.
“The four defensemen who played last night played a ton of minutes,” Lambert added. “It wasn’t necessarily pretty at times but I thought we gutted it out and we battled and I give our team full marks.
The lack of juice, both physically and creatively, was especially evident on the Islanders’ power play, which showed little signs of life while going 0-for-3 after going 6-for-their-previous-13.
The Islanders were largely outplayed during the first two periods of the night. After getting six quick shots against Ersson in the game’s first 3:05, New York went the final 16:55 of the frame without landing another shot on goal while the Flyers posted 12 chances on Sorokin unanswered.
Philadelphia outshot the Islanders 12-9 in the second period — though the hosts worked out a few close-range chances that they were unable to convert on — and 13-6 in the third, creating a regulation shot-total difference of 37-21.
