Barzal leads way for Isles

WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Mathew Barzal said he’s still looking for his game. The Jets might disagree.

Barzal scored two power-play goals in the second period and Semyon Varlamov made 32 saves in the Islanders’ 3-1 victory over Winnipeg on Thursday.

“I’m just trying to play my game,” Barzal said. “I’ve got pretty good linemates, so I’m just trying to feed them a little bit as well. The chemistry has been pretty good. I’m just trying to find my game still, just day by day just trying to get better.”

Islanders coach Barry Trotz has pressed Barzal to shoot more.

“He’s shooting the puck way better,” Trotz said. “We talked about it last year, sort of being a dualthreat and not always a pass-first guy. He changed a lot of things this summer and that was one of them.”

Josh Bailey scored into an empty net on another power play with 27 seconds left in the third period to cap the Islanders’ third straight victory and seal Winnipeg’s third loss in a row.

“We were obviously slow out of the gates and we really relied on [Varlamov] early to keep us in the game,” Bailey said. “He made some tough saves, some timely saves and really just gave us a chance to get going and get back into the game and obviously shut them down when we needed it at the end.”

The Islanders didn’t get their sixth shot until 7:41 of the second period — and it was a power-play goal by Barzal that tied it 16 seconds after Dmitry Kulikov went to the penalty box for tripping.

Barzal broke the tie with 17 seconds remaining in the second period.