Islanders pounce on Senators

OTTAWA, Ontario — Despite playing with just four defensemen, the Islanders rallied and beat the wellrested Senators, 5-3, Friday night.

Kyle Palmieri and Oliver Wahlstrom each had a goal and an assist. Mathew Barzal, Anders Lee and Simon Holmstrom also scored. Semyon Varlamov stopped 28 shots for the Isles (8-6-5).

The Islanders found themselves short-handed early on when both Adam Pelech and Sebastian Aho were injured after playing just two shifts, leaving them to play the remainder of the game down two defensemen.

“That was an incredible effort,” said Islanders coach Lane Lambert. “We knew real early in the game what we were up against. … I thought they did a good job of making sure they kept their shift as short as possible and I just thought it was an incredible effort by the four of them.”

Friday’s game was the Senators’ first since returning from Sweden. Drake Batherson had a pair of goals and Tim Stutzle scored his fifth for Ottawa (8-8-0). Anton Forsberg made 21 saves.

The Islanders took a twogoal lead early in the third on Holmstrom’s goal, which went off Ottawa’s Vladimir Tarasenko.

A wild second period saw the teams combine for five goals.

The Senators appeared to take a 2-1 lead at the sixminute mark of the second, but it was called off for being offside. Wahlstrom scored almost immediately for the Isles to take the lead.

The Islanders then went on to score a pair of goals in a span of six seconds. Barzal beat Forsberg with a wrist shot on the power play and off the ensuing faceoff the Islanders took control and Lee scored to give the them a 4-1 lead.

“It was a lot of minutes for everyone,” said Noah Dobson, who played a teamhigh 31 minutes and five seconds. “I think as a group everyone was aware and the forwards did a good job helping us out getting back and then we needed [Varlamov] to make some big saves and he did that.”