Good Morning, Islanders Country.
That was a perfectly Islanders way to end the first half of the season.
A game where, as a fan, they push you away only to bring you back in. They fill you with doubt only to give you reasons to believe. It’s what they have cruelly been doing to us throughout this wacky and predictably unpredictable season.
It’s 41 games, and I don’t know what type of team the Islanders are, do you? A team that tells you they are built from the back on out with an identity rooted in structure, and yet, the only thing keeping them in the playoff picture is that they can suddenly score with anybody.
There’s a really fine line for this Islanders team, and each game, I don’t know what side of it they’re going to fall. Last night, it was on the right side, and they did so in thrilling fashion.
This wasn’t a game I thought they were winning. The vibes were bad all day following the news that Casey Cizikas was week-to-week with an injury, and it was impossible to find a fan pleased with Lane Lambert’s drastic shuffling of the lines that split Bo Horvat and Mathew Barzal.
The Leafs had won four straight, and the Isles were coming off two lopsided regulation losses and planned to roll out four new-look lines. After a solid first period, the wheels appeared to be coming off when Auston Matthews scored a quick pair of goals, and the new lines experiment was falling flat.
But rather than another lackluster effort, the Isles responded and rallied. Alexander Romanov’s goal gave them a spark, and the power-play came up clutch again to tie the game on Horvat’s tip-in. In overtime, the team’s leading scorers (and should be All-Stars), Noah Dobson and Barzal, connected for the game-winner, sending Toronto home with the “loser point” for the second time this season.
It was a huge win and a character win for the Isles. They were in danger of a snag becoming a slump heading back on the road. Instead, they have some momentum and mojo they head to music city this weekend.
Let’s dive in.
🏒 IN SHORT: Mathew Barzal scored 21 seconds into overtime, and Noah Dobson had four assists as the Islanders came back from down two goals in the second to defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3 on Thursday night at UBS Arena. Barzal also assisted on three goals for the Isles (19-12-10), who also received goals from Kyle Palmieri, Alexander Romanov, and Bo Horvat. Ilya Sorokin made 32 saves in the win to snap a two-game losing streak. NHL leading goal-scorer Auston Matthews scored twice, and Bobby McMann had a goal for the Leafs (21-10-8), who had won four straight. Martin Jones made 27 saves in the loss.
KEY MOMENT(s):
🔻 After scoring 26 seconds into the period, Auston Matthews tallied his second of the game when Pontus Holmberg stripped Noah Dobson of the puck, leading to Matthews sliding a back-hand five-hole on Sorokin.
🔷 Trailing 3-1, Alexander Romanov sniped a shot passed Martin to cut the lead to one. Then, at 13:51 on the power-play, Horvat tipped in Dobson’s shot to tie the game for his 17th goal of the season.
🔶 Following an icing, Bo Horvat won the face-off, and Dobson made a great pass to find Barzal's backdoor for the game-winner, tipping a pass past Jones.
3 REACTIONS
❶ COULD HAVE ROLLED OVER: “Everyone stepped up tonight,” Bo Horvat said after the win. “We could’ve rolled over after we were down 3-1, but we came out even harder. Really proud of everybody in the room, especially Barzal, Dobson and Sorokin, they had a hell of a night.”
❷ TOP TO BOTTOM: “Lane did a good job on the bench today; we had to scramble lines a little bit,” Mathew Barzal said. “He did a good job rolling guys and whatnot. So yeah, top to bottom, it was a big win.”
❸ RESOLVE: “The players really took it upon themselves,” Lane Lambert said. “We knew we had a performance the other night that we didn't really like. So you look at this game, it shows a lot of character, especially going down 3-1 tonight, so wasn't so much the lines, it's just the resolve of our team and the group.”
DESERVE TO WIN O’METER
SCORING CHANCES
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders are in Music City to visit GM Barry Trotz and the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena. Face-off is set for 8:00 PM EST.
📊 STANDINGS:
📰 NEWS: The Islanders announced forward Casey Cizikas is week-to-week with a lower-body injury. The injury occurred when Cizikas blocked a shot in the first period during Tuesday’s 5-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks. After taking one 11-second shift in the second period, he left the game and did not return.
Cizikas has 11 points (5G, 6A) through 39 games this season. The previous game Cizikas missed was Dec. 29 vs Washington, where Cal Clutterbuck shifted to center for one game. Lambert was going to try that again, not with Cizikas expected to be out for longer than just one game.
“I thought Clutter did a decent job,” Lambert said. “But the length of time that Casey is going to be out, I don’t think we can manage to have a non-centerman play center for an extended period of time.”
Blurring Lines
For the time being, the team did not place Cizikas on IR, and rather than call up a center from Bridgeport, Lambert unexpectedly shuffled all four of his lines for the game against Toronto.
“I don’t think we’ve played very well lately,” Lambert said before the game. “We could have just moved one person with Cizikas being out. But we moved a bunch of people. We’ve got to be better.”
The changes included breaking up the top line of Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat. Horvat centered Oliver Wahlstrom and Anders Lee, while Barzal played alongside Kyle Palmieri and Simon Holmstrom.
Even with the line changes, Lambert did find spots to pair Lee-Horvat-Barzal together. They played 6:28 TOI together and had the highest xGoals produced of all the lines on Thursday. We’ll see how they come out on Saturday vs. NSH.
Romanov Record
Trailing 3-1 and in danger of the game slipping away, Alexander Romanov sniped a shot past Martin Jones at the 4:18 mark of the second period for a career-best fourth goal of the season and second in five games.
“That was a big goal by Romi,” Horvat said. “It brought us back to life. It wasn’t always pretty out there by any means, but our battle level was high. We were recovering pucks and getting our opportunities.”
📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, Mathew Barzal is the first player in NHL history to have multiple games in his career where he had at least three assists in regulation and then scored the winning goal in overtime.
Barzal has done it twice this season (November 30th vs Carolina); they are only the 29th and 30th time it has ever happened – and the only time an Islander has done so. It was the third time this season Barzal has recorded at least four points, tying Nikita Kucherov, Connor McDavid, and Mitch Marner for the NHL lead.
🎥 ISLES REWIND: On Jan. 12, 1985, Mats Hallin, John Tonelli, and Mike Bossy scored goals in the final 3:30 to give the Islanders their third straight victory, a 5-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers. Hallin poked the puck through Philadelphia goalie Pelle Lindbergh's legs to tie the score at 16:44.
Tonelli tipped in a 50-foot point shot by Gord Dineen 1:04 later for the game-winner. Bossy's empty-net goal, his second tally of the game, in the final minute, made it 5-3.
🎧 The Red Line presented by Isles Fix: Lane Changes “In the latest episode of “The Red Line” with co-hosts Phil Farber (@PhilzFacts) and David Tuchman (@TuckOnSports), the boys hop on to discuss the impact Casey Cizikas's injury and Lane Lambert putting the lines in a blender, including separating Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat.”
🔗 Islanders topple Maple Leafs in overtime after Lane Lambert’s rare lineup changes by Ethan Sears, NY Post “The line changes had the intended effect, helping the Islanders to a 4-3 win at UBS Arena over the Maple Leafs on Mathew Barzal’s game-winner in overtime.”
🔗 Islanders coach Lane Lambert switches up lines because they've 'got to play better' by Andrew Gross, Newsday “Sure, Casey Cizikas’ absence necessitated some alteration to the Islanders’ forward lines. But the team’s recent play pushed coach Lane Lambert to make more sweeping changes.”
And we leave you with this …. before he was the hero of the game, Mathew Barzal played the role when meeting with his hometown team, Burnaby Winter Club, at morning skate.
Thanks for reading! Follow us on Twitter for regular updates until the next newsletter.
And please check out our newsletters about the Knicks and Mets, too.