Despite elimination, Isles keep on winning

A DAY after missing out on the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, the Islanders closed their season playing their best.

Anders Lee and Brock Nelson scored in the second period and the host Islanders beat the Senators, 4-2, on Sunday for their season-high sixth straight victory. Andrew Ladd and Jason Chimera also scored and Nelson had an assist for the Islanders, who were eliminated from playoff contention Saturday night.

“It’s nice to end on a good note,” Lee said. “It’s not good enough. We expect to be a playoff team ev- ery year and we didn’t get it done, obviously. I think all the guys in the locker room are going to have a sour taste all summer.”

Interim coach Dough Weight went 24-12-4 after taking over for the fired Jack Capuano on Jan. 17 with the Islanders in last place in the East. They ended up just one point out of a playoff spot, missing the postseason for the second time in five seasons.

“It’s an uphill battle when you don’t get off to the start you need to,” Ladd said. “We did a good job of getting ourselves back into it, but that doesn’t give you much solace at this point.”

Thomas Greiss, playing for the first time in six games, stopped 32 shots. Greiss last played on March 30, when he was pulled after giving up three goals on eight shots in the first 8:06 of a 6-3 loss at Philadelphia.

Bobby Ryan and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored for the Senators and Mike Condon notched 17 saves. Ottawa, which had already clinched second place in the Atlantic Division and home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs, left 10 players back home to rest.

“It was a game where we wanted to see some young guys,” Senators coach Guy Boucher said. “We pulled out a lot of our guys for rest, precaution and making sure we don’t have injuries.”

With Ottawa trailing, 3-0, Ryan got the Senators on the scoreboard with 1:06 left in the second, skating in and firing a shot into the top right corner for his 13th goal of the season.

Pageau pulled Ottawa within one 2:34 into the third, beating Greiss with a wrist shot. The Senators pressed for the tying goal in the closing minutes but couldn’t get anything else past Greiss.

“They stretched everything and pulled us out of what we try to do generally, and we got a lot of fill-in guys that are trying to learn the system as well,” Ryan said. “We had a chance to get to 100 points, and we missed that.”