The Islanders came into Philadelphia on Monday night outmanned and reeling, having lost their last two games by a combined score of 9-1.
For a team that hadn’t lost three straight games in regulation since the first three games of the season, and for a team that would have gone below the playoff cutline with a defeat, this was a game they needed in the worst sort of way.
Down Simon Holmstrom, Cal Ritchie and Ryan Pulock with a combination of illness and injury, the Islanders showed their resilience anyway, defeating the Flyers 4-0 at Wells Fargo Center.
This performance had so much of what the last few games have lacked.
The Islanders dominated on special teams. They held the puck in the offensive zone and played off the cycle. They cut down on high-danger chances around Ilya Sorokin’s crease.
That is what they will need to do, again and again, if they are going to stay above the playoff cutline and make some noise in the tournament itself.
Coach Patrick Roy’s constant reshuffling of the lines finally seemed to land on some combinations that did the trick here. The trio of Jonathan Drouin, Mat Barzal and Anthony Duclair was up ice most of the evening, and produced a goal when Barzal tipped Isaiah George’s shot from the right point past Sam Ersson to make it a 2-0 game 5:41 into the second.
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That was sandwiched between a pair of special teams goals, the first of which came from Jean-Gabriel Pageau shorthanded at 14:29 of the first. Pageau took Cizikas’ expertly-spun feed off the wall and went bar-down to open the scoring.
Barzal then got his second point of the night on the power play, assisting Tony DeAngelo off the rush to make it 3-0 at 12:50 of the second. Ironically, that counted for DeAngelo’s first power play goal as an Islander.
The Flyers didn’t come up with much as far as a potential comeback, and Pageau’s second goal of the night made it a 4-0 game at 13:38 of the third. Max Tsyplakov’s feed off the wall to set up Pageau was just his second point and first assist of the year.
The reunited fourth line of Marc Gatcomb, Casey Cizikas and Kyle MacLean did its usual good work, while Emil Heineman and Bo Horvat clicked well on the second line. Max Shabanov got better alongside them as the game went on, as did Tsyplakov with Pageau and Anders Lee. The Islanders will hope that Tsyplakov — filling in for Holmstrom, who was a late scratch with illness — gets a much-needed confidence boost from putting a point on the board.
Sorokin, for once, was not under fire all night. His sixth shutout of the year required just 21 saves for comparatively little stress.
The injuries are starting to pile up for the Islanders, who appear ready to pull the trigger on a reinforcement in the form of Carson Soucy. The Post’s Mollie Walker reported a deal is close between the Rangers and Islanders for the defenseman, with ESPN’s Emily Kaplan adding that the likely return is a 2026 third-round pick.
If Pulock’s upper-body injury has him miss serious time, though, Soucy won’t be enough. And Ritchie, who was called day-to-day with a lower-body injury, is suddenly a concern as well.
The way everything was piling up, a loss on Monday would have felt like a crisis point in the season.
Turning in an all-around performance and a commanding win over the team directly below them in the standings instead was certainly a good way to take the pressure off.
