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The New York Islanders’ brief three-game win streak ended against the Philadelphia Flyers in a shootout last night, falling 1-0.
Julien Gauthier checked into action for Hudson Fasching on the fourth line, while both Samuel Bolduc and Grant Hutton came into the lineup, as a result of the injuries to Adam Pelech and Sebastian Aho.
The Islanders were outshot 40-25 in the game, and while it was far from New York’s best outing, neither team was really giving up much in the way of quality chances.
New York came out with a good first stretch of the opening frame, but much of the rest of the period was all Flyers (despite the Islanders having a power play later), on route to New York going the period without another shot on goal after their early surge. We saw somewhat of a more even middle period from there, with neither team giving up much, but with another man advantage later in the period to generate some momentum, the Islanders still failed to get anything going.
Then opening the third period on a third power play, the Islanders once again couldn’t convert, though Philadelphia also had very few opportunities on their only man advantage later. Bo Horvat had one of the Islanders’ best chances of the game with a late one-timer, but was stopped by Samuel Ersson, and regulation ended scoreless. We saw better chances in overtime from there, with both Travis Konecny and Bo Horvat getting chances in alone, but neither could end it, and the game continued to a shootout, where Tyson Foerster scored the lone goal to win it for the Flyers in the fourth round.
It was a pretty disappointing performance for the Islanders, and while the team actually did a good job limiting quality chances (despite the 40 shots against), they also got very little going for themselves. Of course, Ilya Sorokin had to be good as well, given the sheer volume of shots against, and made some good saves throughout the keep things scoreless.
New York’s power plays were extremely quiet, going 0-for-3 without a single shot on goal across their opportunities on the man advantage.
Perhaps one of the most pleasant surprises was Julien Gauthier, who looked really good on the fourth line, pressuring for turnovers on the forecheck. The outing did mark the end of a good stretch of a couple games for the Lee-Pageau-Wahlstrom line though, being outshot by a huge 9-1 margin at 5-on-5, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
As expected, the team also really relied on Noah Dobson, Ryan Pulock, Alexander Romanov and Scott Mayfield to carry the bulk of the work defensively. Dobson in particular played nearly 29 minutes, while Bolduc and Hutton were down around just 10 and 13 minutes respectively. I’d imagine that once Mike Reilly joins the lineup, he’ll be getting a pretty good opportunity right away in terms of ice time, to lessen the burden on the top-four defenders.
Regardless, the Islanders picked up a point, but it’s another situation where once they get past regulation, they’re going to struggle to win games based on the lack of finishers within their group. They’re still on a six-game point streak at 3-0-3, but the team let another chance to pick up an extra point slip by, now leading the league in losses via overtime or shootout this season.
They’ll be back in action on Tuesday against the New Jersey Devils, kicking off a stretch of three straight road games.
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Meanwhile, the Islanders also announced today that they’ve acquired forward Tyce Thompson from the New Jersey Devils, in exchange for Arnaud Durandeau.
The brother of Buffalo Sabres’ forward Tage Thompson, Tyce is 24 years old and has scored five points in 15 AHL games this season. He’s played 11 total NHL games.
Going the other way, Durandeau is the same age as Thompson and had four points in 12 games with the Bridgeport Islanders this season. He’s coming off a really strong 2022-23 AHL season, where he also played in four NHL games.
At least on the surface, this is a pretty even, minor swap. While either Thompson or Durandeau could still become full-time NHL players, it seemed unlikely either forward would do so with their current organization, so it’s a fresh opportunity for both.
OTHER ARTICLES FROM NOVEMBER
- Blown leads, reliance on goaltending are issues on Islanders' point streak
- Islanders’ point streak ends in home loss to Wild
- Islanders on three-game skid following loss to Bruins
- Islanders’ skid extends to four games after losing 4-1 to Capitals
- Islanders’ losing streak at five games after loss to Oilers
- Isles blow leads in both games of back-to-back as penalty kill struggles
- Islanders snap seven-game losing streak with shootout win over Flames
- Islanders hang on for home win over Flyers
- Islanders beat Senators in first half of back-to-back, Adam Pelech on LTIR 
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