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Isles shutout Flyers; Darche acquires Soucy from Rangers
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Good Morning, Islanders Country.
If you doubted whether there’s a method to Patrick Roy’s madness, it showed up loud and clear Monday night in Philadelphia.
Two days after he benched his entire second line and lit a match under his locker room, Roy watched his Islanders walk into a building that gives them trouble and deliver exactly what he demanded: a full, honest, buttoned-up 60 minutes against a team breathing down their necks in the standings.
No Simon Holmstrom. No Cal Ritchie. No Ryan Pulock. No excuses.
And no goals allowed, either.
Behind Ilya Sorokin’s league-leading sixth shutout — the calmest 21-save whitewash of his season — and two goals from JG Pageau, the Islanders beat the Flyers the right way. They supported each other, and they communicated. They were connected. It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t dramatic. It was professional. It was structured.
“It was probably our best 60-minute game from start to finish in a little while here,’’ said defenseman Tony DeAngelo who scored a power-play goal one year after he was signed by Lou Lamoriello after a stint in the NHL.
It was accountability hockey.
Sorokin didn’t need to summon the highlight reel this time. He just needed to be Sorokin, and he was. The Flyers fired only 21 pucks his way. It was the kind of night elite goalies dream of — and coaches build for.
“We approached the game like it was a playoff game, and I thought we played an extremely solid game,” said Pageau. The focus was where it needed to be and where it needs to stay for the Isles to be successful.
