Isles outlast Sabres to keep pace in race
The Islanders’ playoff odds have never been better.
It will still take a strong five weeks to close out the season, but the Islanders could not have dreamed of a better run of events over the last three weeks. And in the biggest game and best victory to date, the Islanders beat the Sabres 3-2 on Tuesday night — a complete and sustained effort in a moment that called for such. For the final 30 minutes, the Islanders dominated a team nipping at their heels in the playoff race, climaxing with Hudson Fasching’s game-winner and culminating with UBS Arena reaching a rare crescendo.
“I don’t know if you could call it taking over the game,” coach Lane Lambert said. “But we imposed our will.”
After a long period where things looked completely tangled between the teams involved, the race is starting to come more and more clearly into focus. The Penguins and Sabres still have three games in hand over the Islanders, but after Tuesday, the Isles hold a six-point lead over the Sabres and have a crack at Pittsburgh on Thursday. If they can win that game, it would go a long way towards not just boosting the Islanders’ playoff odds, but boosting their chances of avoiding the big bad Bruins in the first round.
“I think the bigger the game, the more you want to get it done,” Josh Bailey said. “This is a fun time of year. I think every game’s gonna keep getting bigger and bigger. We gotta embrace that, keep moving forward.”
That this is the conversation surrounding the Islanders less than three weeks after Mathew Barzal suffered a suspected knee injury in Boston, sidelining him for the foreseeable future, is nothing short of remarkable. But since then, the Isles have gotten back to the roots that made them a Stanley Cup contender a couple of seasons ago, making themselves hard to play against with structured, defensive hockey.
On Tuesday, though, it was a sustained offensive push that won the Islanders the game.
That culminated a high-intensity third period of fire-wagon hockey, which started with Bailey’s backhand into an open net off a loose puck just 1:51 in to give the Islanders a 2-1 lead. Kyle Okposo would quickly come back to tie the game with a wrist shot that made its way through traffic at 4:59.
And just as everyone was still digesting that, the Islanders retook the lead as a pass from Bailey hit off Fasching’s knee and went in at the 7:37 mark. Initially waved off for a kick, a lengthy review found that the puck went
off his knee, not 3
Summary his skate, thus 2 Page 42 counting as a good
goal.
“I’m always thinking it’s a goal, right?” Fasching said. “I’m always rooting for it to be a goal. I didn’t think I kicked it, but it’s the officials’ call. Glad they got it right.”
Instead of sitting back and defending, the Islanders kept the pressure on. It turned out to be the right call as the Sabres struggled to generate much offense at five-on-five. When Buffalo pulled the goalie, the Islanders dug in, defended and leaned on Ilya Sorokin as the netminder finished with 22 saves.
After an opening 40 minutes in which Dylan Cozens and Casey Cizikas traded second-period goals, this was the final 20 the Islanders needed.
“Going into the game, the situation in the standings, I think it gets you excited,” Bailey said. “Juiced up before the game and you want to go out there and have your best performance as a team.”
Indeed, this one was up there as the best the Islanders have played all season.
Nothing is guaranteed until the Isles can see an X next to their names in the standings, and that is still a long way off. Thursday’s match in Pittsburgh is still vital, and everything can still change on a dime.
Right now, though, you wouldn’t bet against the Islanders to make the playoff field.
And with Barzal expected to return towards the end of the season, you probably wouldn’t want to see them on the other side if they get there.