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Good Morning, Islanders Country.
For those that celebrate, we hope you had an epic Easter or Passover.
On Saturday night, Bo Horvat’s post-game comments drew attention when he said that the excitement of the playoff push on Long Island is “a lot better than Vancouver.” We’re biased, but no argument from us there.
Another thing that’s been a lot better in the last two games is the production of Horvat’s line with Simon Holmstrom and Anders Lee. Horvat and Holmstrom each scored a goal in the Islanders’ 6-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning and followed it with two assists each in the 4-0 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.
Head Coach Lane Lambert previously played around with the “top line,” looking for a spark of any kind without disrupting much of his other lineup, but settled back to Lee-Horvat-Holmstrom after everything he tried produced much of the same. But now, during the critical, must-win final four games of the season, they may have found that elusive something that they’ve been missing.
"They're skating better," Lambert said of the line. "Bo is skating better. I think Holmstrom has shown some confidence, he's really starting to make some plays. Lee had one of his better games here. He showed his leadership tonight, he was hard on pucks, he was good."
Horvart also did what he’s been doing since joining the Islanders. He finished checks, didn’t turn over the puck, and won face-offs, taking 11 of 16 from the dot on Saturday night. To go along with his career-best 38 goals, the 28-year-old has 31 assists, his most since the 2019-20 season.
"I think we were just due," said Horvat in The Hockey News. "We've had so many looks over the past however many games, and it wasn't going in for us. We've been doing a lot of the good things, and it's finally nice to get rewarded for it."
Horvat’s line needs to keep it going tonight and in the season finale against the Montreal Canadiens. With Mathew Barzal’s status still uncertain, the Isles will likely need some production from the line to make the playoffs and a bit more and then some if they plan on making some noise during a post-season run.
Coming up, the magic number is down to three, and Brock Nelson has the highest point total for the team in five years. Plus, rookie Samuel Bolduc adds to what’s been an offensive defense, Ilya Sorokin’s latest shutout stats, and Game One goes to the Island.
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