Islanders beat Devils for 7th straight win, lose Lee
UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Matt Martin and Adam Pelech scored first-period goals, rookie Ilya Sorokin made 19 saves and the New York Islanders welcomed fans back to Nassau Coliseum by beating the New Jersey Devils 5-3 on Thursday night for their seventh straight win.
The first-place Islanders are 12-0-2 at the arena this year, and this win came with 1,000 frontline workers in the stands. They were the first fans at Nassau Coliseum since March 7, 2020, five days before last season was suspended due to the pandemic.
“It was special with all the sacrifices they made, all the long hours and sleepless nights,” Martin said. “We are grateful for them to be the first ones in the stands watching Islander hockey.”
Noah Dobson, Josh Bailey and Brock Nelson also scored for the Islanders. Sorokin won for the fifth time.
The Devils scored three times in the third period. Janne Kuokkanen and Mikhail Maltsev tallied 40 seconds apart, and Jack Hughes scored his sixth goal of the season at 15:52. Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 29 shots.
Anders Lee had to leave the game shortly after that goal when he became entangled with Pavel Zacha of the Devils in front of the Islanders net. Lee kept weight off his right leg as he was helped off the ice. The Islanders captain was playing his 295th consecutive game dating to January 2017, the third-longest streak in team history behind Bob Nystrom and Billy Harris. He leads the Islanders with 12 goals.
Islanders coach Barry Trotz didn’t have an update on Lee’s condition following the game.
“Anders is our captain, our leader. He’s got total respect our whole team,” Trotz said. ”Everyone on our bench felt for him there.“
All six defenseman for the Islanders registered points in the game, with Ryan Pulock getting two assists and Nick Leddy, Andy Greene and Scott Mayfield getting one each in addition to the goals by Dobson and Pelech. The same six blue liners have played in all 27 games this season.
“Everyone was chipping in,“Pulock said. ”We want to help out our forwards.”
Trotz became the third Islanders coach to win 100 games, joining Al Arbour and Jack Capuano. Lou Lamoriello became the fourth Long Island general manager to win 100 games, joining Bill Torrey, Mike Milbury and Garth Snow.
BRUINS 4, RANGERS 0
BOSTON — Jake DeBrusk returned after being benched one game for lack of effort and scored his first goal in almost a month, chasing Rangers goalie Alexandar Georgiev early in the second period and leading the Boston Bruins to a shutout victory on Thursday night.
David Krejci scored his first goal of the season and Brad Marchand had two assists — one of them after sliding the puck through his own skates to set up Patrice Bergeron’s short-handed goal that gave Boston a 2-0 lead after one. David Pastrnak also scored for Boston, and Jaroslav Halak stopped 28 shots for his second shutout of the year.
The Bruins snapped a two-game losing streak and earned just their fourth victory in 11 games.
Georgiev stopped 10 of the 14 shots he saw before he was pulled five minutes into the second period after allowing back-toback goals 1:21 apart to Krejci and DeBrusk. Keith Kinkaid came on and stopped all 13 shots the rest of the way for New York, which lost its third in a row.
DeBrusk, who had 16 goals as a rookie in 2017-18 and 27 the next year, had just one score and four assists in 17 games before coach Bruce Cassidy sat him for Tuesday’s game against the Islanders. Asked why, the coach didn’t hold back, saying, “We just feel we’re not getting the effort required.”
DeBrusk returned to the lineup on Thursday and scored for the first time since Feb. 18, converting a crossing pass from Krejci to make it 4-0 and chase Georgiev.