LIKE OIL’ & WATER
The Islanders had been racking up goals, just shy of four per night, and playing in plenty of high-scoring affairs through their first 14 games of the season.
On Tuesday, all it would have taken was two and despite a furious third period, the Islanders could never find the winner. Instead, Oilers keeper Cam Talbot (36 saves) and Islanders backstop Thomas Greiss (23 saves) traded turns stonewalling their opponents for 60 minutes.
And then after the Islanders couldn’t finish one of their best chances of the night, reigning Hart Trophy winner Connor McDavid worked some of his magic. The young phenom delivered the game-winner for the Oilers 38 seconds into overtime, lifting a shot past Greiss to hand the Islanders a 2-1 loss at Barclays Center.
“It’s a sour taste in your mouth, but we played well,” coach Doug Weight said. “We really cleaned up defensively against a good team, against a big, strong team that shoots the puck a lot. Greisser was good, Talbot was good and our game was good.
“It was a well-played game, so I can’t complain.”
The thriller featured the lowest amount of combined scoring in an Islanders game this season. The previous low came Oct. 14 in a 3-1 win against the Sharks.
The Islanders nearly had the winner before McDavid scored his. In the three-onthree overtime, John Tavares had the puck just to the right of Talbot with Mathew Barzal open in front of the net. Tavares got off a pass to Barzal, but he whiffed and the Oilers went on the winning counterattack.
“I think Barzy maybe surprised [Tavares] that he was that open,” Weight said. “The puck was bouncing and by the time he settled it, he just kind of fired it. He wanted that nice hard pass. It was a Grade A chance.”
Despite having to mix and match their lines in the third period with fourthline winger Nikolay Kulemin (upper-body injury) missing, the Islanders created some of their highest-percentage scoring chances in the final 20 minutes of regulation.
They had a flurry of opportunities midway through the period with ex- Oiler Jordan Eberle prominently involved, but Talbot turned everything away. The former Rangers backup goalie did it again in the final minutes before overtime, when again the Islanders turned up the pressure to no avail.
“That was our best period, for sure. We controlled the play,” Eberle said. “We lost a guy in Kule so you gotta try to get bodies out there and it’s tough to do that with line combinations. It worked. We rolled in that third period and we almost came out [with the win].”
The Islanders’ streak of scoring in 17 straight periods was snapped when they were shut out in the opening 20 minutes of the game. They again had their chances — including one that would have been the highlight of the night as Barzal dangled his way through a defender, only to be turned away by Talbot — but could not find the finishing touch.
Leon Draisaitl had put the Oilers up 1-0 in the second period on a breakaway, but Eberle found the equalizer three minutes later.
“I think we played really well tonight,” Greiss said. “If we keep playing like this, we’ll win a lot of hockey games. Sometimes you just don’t get lucky. Last game, every puck was pretty much bouncing in for us and we had a lot of luck on our side. Today, it just didn’t happen for us.”