Perhaps at times the Islanders weren’t as disciplined or defensively sound as they’d like it to be. It didn’t matter. They had Ilya Sorokin.
The goalie brilliantly denied several odd-man rushes in making 26 saves as the Islanders welcomed back coach Barry Trotz from COVID-19 protocol with a 4-1 victory over the reeling Flyers on Monday night at UBS Arena to conclude a 5-1-1 homestand.
The teams, who play three times in nine days, conclude this home-and-home series on Tuesday night at Philadelphia.
The last-place Islanders (12-13-6), who have played the fewest games in the NHL, moved within 16 points of the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference and within three points of the sixth-place Flyers (13-18-7), who are in an 0-6-2 skid. The Flyers went 0-for-4 on the power play with just three shots.
The Islanders’ looming task of playing themselves back into playoff contention certainly appears daunting.
But that’s not how the team sees it.
"I don’t think it’s overwhelming at all," Mathew Barzal said. "We know we have a ton of games in hand. We know there’s 50 or so games left in the season. Also, we’ve been in situations before where we’ve been down or out of a playoff spot and battled our way back. This team has got a lot of resilience and a lot of character."
It certainly helps that their goaltending is solidified. Semyon Varlamov stopped 34 of 35 shots in Saturday’s otherwise disappointing 2-0 loss to the visiting Capitals and will likely start Tuesday. Meanwhile, Sorokin is 5-1-1 since Dec. 7 and has allowed two or fewer goals in five of those games.
Trotz flip-flopped Kieffer Bellows and Josh Bailey, putting Bellows on Barzal’s right wing while Bailey was reunited with Brock Nelson and Anthony Beauvillier. Bellows had two goals and two assists in his last five games but on-ice communication between him and the free-skating, creative Barzal was lacking early. That seemed to improve as the game progressed.
The Flyers, like the Islanders, have struggled through a roller-coaster season. Coach Alain Vigneault was fired on Dec. 6 after an eighth straight loss and replaced on an interim basis by Mike Yeo.
But not much has changed for them.
The Islanders took a two-goal lead in a second period that saw both teams playing some loose defense before the Flyers’ Travis Konecny made it 2-1 at 17:12 with a cross-ice feed from the right that deflected past Sorokin off defenseman Noah Dobson’s shoulder. Sorokin then denied Joel Farabee on a breakaway on 19:00 to preserve that lead.
Anthony Beauvillier pushed that to 3-1 at 4:44 of the third period as he connected from the slow on a delayed penalty. Matt Martin’s empty-netter at 18:37 of the third period completed the scoring.
Sorokin also slid to his right to get an arm on Scott Laughton’s close-range shot off a two-on-none rush with Farabee 46 seconds into the second period. He also made two saves on Flyers’ shorthanded rushes in the period and Laughton also hit the post shorthanded.
Brock Nelson’s team-leading 11th goal gave the Islanders a 1-0 lead at 11:44 of the second period as he sent a rising wrist shot past Martin Jones (27 saves) as he used Flyers defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen as a screen. Casey Cizikas then tipped defenseman Robin Salo’s blue-line shot past Jones for a 2-0 lead at 14:28. Cizikas’ first goal of the season was his first in 44 games.
Zach Parise, still looking for his second goal as an Islander, was stopped on a shorthanded try from the left after Jean-Gabriel Pageau rushed the puck up ice at 9:14 of the first period.
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