ELMONT, N.Y. — Lucas Raymond scored the game-winning goal 2:25 into overtime to lift the Detroit Red Wings to a 4-3 victory over the New York Islanders on Monday night at UBS Arena.
Raymond slotted a wide-open one-timer to the left of Ilya Sorokin, who extended Islanders hopes in overtime just moments earlier by making a diving save on Alex DeBrincat 45 seconds into the extra frame, throwing out the right pad to stop the one-timer destined for the wide-open net.
A five-goal third period saw Bo Horvat tie the game with 4:11 to go in regulation on the power play after the Red Wings reeled off three goals in 3:58 midway through the third period through tallies by Daniel Sprong, Jake Walman, and JT Compher to give the visitors a 3-2 lead with 10:27 remaining.
“It was nice to get the point, but we shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” Horvat said. “We had a lead in the third period.”
The Islanders (4-2-2) held a 2-0 lead in the final period through a second-period shorthanded goal from Casey Cizikas and an early third-period tally from Noah Dobson before conceding Detroit’s run.
“I don’t think it was taking our foot off the gas. We got away [from our game],” Islanders head coach Lane Lambert said. “When you have a 2-0 lead, there’s a certain way our team has to play in order to have success. We have to keep pushing the puck north and when we get away from that… it’s not a recipe for success.”
Sorokin, who had faced an onslaught of shots in his previous three starts, stopped 33 Red Wings shots while Ville Husso turned away 35 of 38 Islanders shots. Dobson and Horvat each accounted for two points in the loss.
Following a timid opening 30 minutes, the game sprang to life midway through the second period thanks to the official’s whistle.
After the Islanders did little with a power play awarded at the 8:29 mark of the period from a Compher slash, they found themselves on the backfoot following consecutive penalties. A crosscheck on Alex Romanov at 12:38 and a Simon Holmstrom slash at the 17:29 mark sandwiched a Cal Clutterbuck 10-minute misconduct that didn’t result in the Islanders going down a man but served as a lengthy timeout for the veteran winger for chirping at the officials.
While Detroit’s Alex DeBrincat hit the crossbar as Holmstrom served his penalty, it was the Islanders that pulled out the game’s first goal when Cizikas streaked down the left wing past Moritz Seider, deked to his backhand in-close and slid the puck through the five-hole of Husso.
“I don’t think I really had anything else, to be honest,” Cizikas said of his scoring move. “I was really tight to the goalie and tight to the net, so when you come with that much speed, I think the goalie kind of has to respect you going to the far post and that maybe opened up the five-hole a little bit.”
Dobson doubled the Islanders’ lead 1:05 into the third period when his wrister from the right point floated through traffic and over the right shoulder of Husso for his third goal of the season.
Sprong started the Red Wings’ comeback at the 7:59 mark of the third when he was allowed to skate down the right wing and drag the puck between the circles. He fired his write under the arm of Sorokin to get Detroit on the board. Just 1:38 later, a slapper from the left point by Walman was redirected through Sorokin’s pads to tie things up with 10:27 to go in regulation.
Compher put the Red Wings ahead when he meandered around the net to get wide-open at Sorokin’s right post where he tapped in a backdoor pass from the point by Seider.
On the power play following a David Perron tripping penalty, Horvat fired a one-timer from between the dots off a pass from Mathew Barzal to force overtime.
“Our special teams were good tonight,” Lambert said of his penalty kill that went 3-for-3 and a power play that went 1-for-2. “The Penalty kill was good with the shorthanded goal and then our power play came up with a huge goal at the end which we needed. Those are timely situations.”
