The Islanders have turned their traditional season-ending western road trip into\u2026something else entirely. Thoroughly dispatching the Red Wings in Detroit, the Isles finished the seven-game stretch with a 6-1 record that has launched them up the standings. At the quarter pole, they\u2019re suddenly in a non-wild card playoff position and just a couple points off the Eastern Conference lead.<\/p>\n
All of the things that have been highlights for the Isles during this run were in effect, including rock-solid goaltending (Ilya Sorokin with a 29-save shutout tonight), responsible defensive support from the forwards, and great waves of speedy offense through the neutral zone.<\/p>\n
As a bonus, and continuing from the last couple of games: Great play from Calum Ritchie and Max Shabanov alongside Casey Cizikas. Ritchie and Shabanov assisted on each other\u2019s goals to give the Isles a 2-0 lead early in the first and they never looked back.<\/p>\n
Joining that line at the beginning of a change, Mat Barzal extended the lead early in the third with a shot from the slot assisted by Cizikas and Shabanov. Bo Horvat, who had several good chances throughout the night, scored on a great faceoff set play two minutes later, and the Isles were up 4-0 just five minutes into the second period.<\/p>\n
With the game out of reach in the third, Max Shabanov made it 5-0 with a stunning 1-on-2 move after yet more good neutral zone pressure from Cizikas and Ritchie. Shabanov joined rare air in having a four-point game as a rookie: Mat Barzal, John Tavares, Pat LaFontaine and Billy Carroll were his precedents.<\/p>\n
Shortly afterward, Mason Appleton and Ben Chiarot resumed their roles as sore-losing village idiots, attacking Scott Mayfield and J-G Pageau after what ended up being an interference minor on Mayfield plus a roughing and 10-minute misconduct, while Appleton had to be escorted off the ice yet received nothing.<\/p>\n
Chiarot only got 2 and 10 despite horse-collaring Mayfield by the visor repeatedly and throwing punches at Pageau for having the nerve to protest. Chiarot was in a foul, silly mood throughout the blowout, so it was just as well that he was finally sent home to sulk.<\/p>\n
The Isles killed that penalty with the help of some razor-thin arm saves by Sorokin, and then they went about finishing the game with just five defensemen.<\/p>\n
What a finale, what a trip.<\/p>\n
The Isles are back to back at home this weekend against two very beatable opponents in the Blues and the Kraken. If they manage to sweep those matinees\u2026what will we make of them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Islanders have turned their traditional season-ending western road trip into\u2026something else entirely. Thoroughly dispatching the Red Wings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[158070,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-304465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-new-york-islanders-game-recaps","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}