The shadows of doubt began to creep closer toward the fringes of the Islanders’ ranks.
The significant absences were becoming apparent. Top-six winger Kyle Palmieri, who scored 54 goals over the previous two seasons, has been done for the season since November. So has the invaluable defenseman, Alex Romanov.
A team that had defied expectations all season was beginning to slow, with losses in five of their previous eight games, including a 5-0 drubbing at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday afternoon at UBS Arena. The offense was growing inconsistent, and a sagging defense that had allowed three or more goals in six of those games was dealt another blow with veteran blue-liner Ryan Pulock potentially facing a stint on injured reserve.
The effort was also being called into question. Mathew Barzal, Anthony Duclair, and captain Anders Lee were benched for the entire third period on Saturday after the former two failed to back-check on a Sabres goal with 11.4 seconds left in the second period.
So, the drop felt inevitable. They fell from their perch of second place in the Metropolitan Division to third, and held just a two-point advantage over the fourth-place Philadelphia Flyers — the same Flyers who they would be visiting on Monday night — and a drop outside of the Eastern Conference playoff picture.
But the Islanders beat the blizzard, got to Philadelphia on Saturday night, and canceled practice on Sunday. They came out flying on Monday night.
They beat the Flyers 4-0, Duclair assisted on a pair of goals, and Barzal scored one of his own.
“We were connected from the top to the bottom of the lineup,” Jean-Gabriel Pageau, whose first-period short-handed goal wrenched momentum into New York’s favor, told reporters. “Everyone showed up. We paid a lot of attention to the little details. We approached the game like it was a playoff game.”
Ilya Sorokin picked up his sixth shutout of the season, turning away all 21 shots he faced, but head coach Patrick Roy was quick to point out that it was the way the team played in front of him that made it possible. That included the work of a hastily thrown-together third defensive pairing of Adam Boqvist and Isaiah George, who struggled against Buffalo but took a step forward in Philadelphia.
“I don’t like to say this, but it was a solid game in front of him,” Roy admitted. “The guys played really well and made his work a lot easier. I’m not saying it was an easy shutout, but the guys played well, and he made the saves when he had to.”
While the Islanders were opening up a four-point gap over the Flyers for third-place and that final automatic playoff qualifying spot in the Metropolitan Division, general manager Mathieu Darche was completing a rare trade with the crosstown rival Rangers to bolster the bottom of his defensive ranks and acquire veteran blue-liner Carson Soucy for a third-round pick.
The left-shot defenseman is a stay-at-home defenseman. At 6-foot-5, he uses his big frame to win puck battles and a long reach to force turnovers. He is not the fastest, but he can be a reliable shutdown option, as he was with the Vancouver Canucks two years ago.
His first taste of life with the Islanders will be back-to-back meetings with the team that traded him, the Rangers, on Wednesday at UBS Arena and Thursday at Madison Square Garden. Of their last six games before the Olympic break, five are coming against divisional opponents.
We’re aware [of this division-heavy run],” Roy said. “This stretch before the Olympic break is going to be very important for us.”
