SAINT PAUL, Minn. — It’s tough to top the Islanders’ win over the Avalanche last month, still just one of four times Colorado has lost in regulation, as their best of the year.
Saturday, though, might have a case.
The Wild, whose already terrific lineup got an infusion of Quinn Hughes to vault them to Stanley Cup contender status, are one of few teams whose speed can make the 2025-26 Islanders look like the 2024-25 Islanders. Still, the Islanders hung on tight, came back from three different deficits and scored a gutsy 4-3 overtime victory over the Wild in a brilliantly entertaining match capped by Simon Holmstrom’s winner.
“I thought we were so resilient tonight,” captain Anders Lee told The Post. “They had some good zone time at times. Kept the puck, they do all their loops. Guys battled. I thought our message was: we’ve been coming back all night. We’re not gonna stop. Every time they took the lead, I think our team did exactly that.”
There were moments during the game, particularly when Hughes was on with Kirill Kaprizov’s line, where the Wild seemed inevitable. Even with the two points in hand, there’s plenty of learning for the Islanders to do from this one.
The biggest lesson, though, is one about their own ability to stay in a game, and to find a way to win it.
The Islanders went down 3-2 midway through the second period on a Hughes to Daemon Hunt to Kaprizov blur, and their struggling power play allowed an opportunity shortly thereafter. The Wild had a chance to grab control when Tony DeAngelo was called for slashing at 18:18 of the period.
Instead, after Holmstrom forced a turnover from Matt Boldy, the Swede sped his way down the ice and fed Casey Cizikas short-handed to tie the game 3-3 with 26 seconds to go in the period, setting the stage for the last 20 minutes.
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The Wild had the better of the chances all game, and rained down pressure in the third. Hughes, spellbinding all night, seemed to have the puck attached to his stick on a yo-yo string, at one point sending Maxim Tsyplakov to the ice with an Allen Iverson-esque crossover.
“Expected goals against [are] probably not gonna be good for us,” coach Patrick Roy said, but this was a win that advanced stats don’t begin to capture.
Despite the ice tilt against them, the Islanders kept their structure intact, and Ilya Sorokin notched a perfect 17-save third, including a trio of in-tight stops on Danila Yurov around the halfway point of the period, to go with his 33-save night.
“He’s proven time and time again that he’s the best goalie in the league,” Holmstrom said. “By far.”
The Islanders held fast into overtime, and 3-on-3 hockey — all their overtime losses have come in shootouts — continued to be this team’s unsung strength. Holmstrom tucked in a backhander, his second goal of the night, to end it.
“I think I’ve been playing some really solid hockey the last 10, 15, 20 games,” Holmstrom told The Post before his three-point night that Lee would call one of the Swede’s best-ever games. “Before, didn’t really get the bounces or the goals or the points that I wanted. I stuck to it. It’s just a reward from that, I think.”
Holmstrom was the Islanders’ best player over 17:40 of ice, sniping one to tie the game at 2-2 in addition to the OT winner and the assist on Cizikas’ short-handed goal. The Islanders had to wait a while for him to get it going this season. He’s making it worth the wait.
“He was the man tonight,” Lee said. “He played a man’s game. Was big in those moments. When he had opportunities, he capitalized on them.”
On the ice from Long Island
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“Oh my god,” Roy said. “He was, again, outstanding.”
So were the Islanders.
“It says a lot,” Holmstrom said. “I think we’ve proven this entire season the resiliency that we have, the team that we are. They’re a great team, no doubt about it. We had to play some defense for a lot of the game and we did a great job. Sorokie, as usual, came up with some massive saves.”
This was high-level hockey, the sort you’d find deep in the spring. The two teams that traded blows Saturday can both dream of doing so again late in the calendar.
