What Are The Odds?

Isles win third straight with another OT winner

Good Morning, Islanders Country.

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but the New York Islanders hope the confidence and swagger they’ve built on this road trip travels with them.

The house always wins. But on Thursday night, the JG Pageau played the kind of hand that made the house go silent, scoring a short-handed goal in OT to lift the Islanders to their third straight win, and second consecutive OT winner.

“That’s what you do in Vegas, right? Take a chance, play the odds, put the puck on net and it went in,” Pageau said. “We got the two points, we have a game tomorrow and we want to play the same way.”

Pageau wasn’t the only one playing the odds. Trailing 3-2 late in the 3rd after blowing a 2-0 lead at the end of the first period, head coach Patrick Roy made a calculated gamble — as he tends to do — and pulled Ilya Sorokin early, putting it all on red and trusting his stars to make the bet pay off. Mathew Barzal did just that, blasting home a one-timer to tie the game with 2:37 left.

Overtime arrived, and with it, another test — a too-many-men penalty that had the Islanders skating short-handed in sudden death. You weren’t thinking about winning at that point, only surviving long enough to get to the shootout.

But Pageau had other ideas and scored just the second shorthanded OT winner in Isles history. What were the odds of that?

Sometimes, your biggest wins come when the odds are stacked, when the cards look bad, and you push anyway.

The Islanders went all-in — and this time, the gamble paid out. Big time.

Game Recap

Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored a short-handed goal 3:02 into overtime, lifting the New York Islanders to a 4–3 win over the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday night for their third straight victory.

Matthew Schaefer had a goal and an assist, while Mathew Barzal and Emil Heineman also scored for New York. Bo Horvat and Jonathan Drouin each added two assists, and Ilya Sorokin made 26 saves as the Islanders improved to 5-1-1 in their last seven games. Vegas, which has now lost four straight (0-2-2), erased an early 2–0 deficit with goals from Shea Theodore, Tomas Hertl, and Reilly Smith. Akira Schmid finished with 20 saves.

Trailing 3–2 late, Barzal tied it with a one-timer from the left circle off a feed from Schaefer with 2:37 left in regulation. In overtime, with the Islanders facing a too-many-men penalty, Sorokin denied Jack Eichel’s drive and Hertl’s rebound attempt hit the crossbar. On the ensuing faceoff, Pageau won the puck in his own zone, skated down the right side, and rifled the game-winner past Schmid.

Heineman and Schaefer scored first-period goals to give New York a 2–0 lead. The Golden Knights rallied with three straight, but the Islanders’ resilience and Pageau’s heroics stole the show under the Vegas lights.

GameScore Impact Card

⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders are right back at it tonight in Utah as the visit the Mammoth. Face-off from Salt Lake City is set for 9:00 PM EST.

📊 STANDINGS

📬 Isles Recall Travis Mitchell from Bridgeport

The Islanders made a roster move Thursday morning, recalling defenseman Travis Mitchell from AHL Bridgeport ahead of their game against the Vegas Golden Knights. The move comes as Scott Mayfield returned to New York for the birth of his first child.

Mitchell, 25, has been one of Bridgeport’s steadiest blueliners this season, recording three assists through 12 games. The 6-foot-4, 203-pound defender posted 13 points (4G, 9A) and 101 penalty minutes last year and has continued to grow into a reliable, physical presence on the back end.

Head coach Patrick Roy said Mitchell’s call-up was well earned, noting that Bridgeport coach Rocky Thompson praised him as “their best defenseman right now.” Mitchell, who played four seasons at Cornell University, joined the Islanders as an undrafted free agent in 2023. He won’t play against Vegas but adds valuable depth as the Isles continue their seven-game road trip.

The Marketing of Matthew Schaefer

For Newsday, Ben Dickson and Andrew Gross did a deep dive into the marketing of Matthew Schaefer by the Islanders and the NHL. From his appearance on GMA the day after he was drafted, to radio shows, podcasts, and everything in between, Schaefer is building a national brand while connecting with the Isles’ fanbase in a way that should have long-lasting returns.

“He’s the most talked-about player we have right now,” said Heidi Browning, the NHL’s chief marketing officer. “He’s generated the most views and the most engagements across our platforms — social media, articles, stories, everything. It’s really the powerful combination of being an extraordinary hockey player who’s now delivering on the ice, and people are rallying around him because of his personal story. He’s open, he’s vulnerable, he’s kind in sharing it — and he genuinely wants to help others.”

According to league data shared with Newsday, Schaefer’s social media content through official NHL channels has generated 59 million views and 1.7 million engagements from the time of the NHL Draft through the end of last month — numbers typically reserved for the league’s biggest names.

“That, by definition, will have a halo effect on the Islanders,” Browning said. “As the team continues to jell and we continue to watch him grow as a player on the ice, I think all eyes will be on the Isles.”

📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, Matthew Schaefer is the first Islander since Bryan Trottier (1975) to record four power play goals in his first 17 NHL games. (Miro Satan, Ruslan Fedotenko, and Mats Lindgren also did it to start their Islander careers, but not their NHL careers). With a goal and an assisst, Schaefer improved to 6-8-14 in his first seventeen NHL games; Bobby Orr is the only other 18-year-old defenseman to score six times prior to his 20th game.

🎥 ISLES REWIND: On November 14, 2009, Tim Jackman celebrated his 28th birthday and set an NHL record by scoring 16 seconds into the game against the Florida Panthers, the fastest goal ever by a player on his birthday. Jackman, Trent Hunter, John Tavares, and Kyle Okposo all scored, and Dwayne Roloson stopped 38 shots for the Islanders in a 5-4 shootout loss after rallying from down 4-2.

📺 Sports Bash with Peter Schwartz - Isles Stanley Cup Champion Dave Lagevin

🔗 This stat shows the 1 area most holding the Islanders back by Todd Matthews, Eyes on Isles “At 5-on-5, they’re hot, with an impeccable 9.2 shooting percentage, well over the league average of 8.5. They scored 53 goals so far this season, and rank 14th in the league in scoring. All signs point to this version of the Islanders becoming one of the most exciting teams in hockey. That comes with one major caveat: They can’t score consistently on the power play.”

🔗 Larry Brooks’ Hall of Fame career started with ‘trusted’ vintage-era Islanders relationships by Dave Blezow, New York Post “He knew the game very well and wasn’t afraid to let his opinion be known, good or bad,” Morrow said. “Reading his articles, the insider information he had, showed that he was doing the hard work of a reporter, talking to players, and keeping [readers] informed of things they wouldn’t otherwise know about.”

---

And we leave you with this…the late Larry Brooks (and Mike Bossy) on the Islanders team flight back from Vancouver after sweeping the Canucks in the 1982 Stanley Cup Final.

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.