The New York Islanders put an exclamation point on their road trip with a 5-0 win over the Detroit Red Wings at Little Caesar’s Arena on Thursday night.
Max Shabanov (2G, 1A) Cal Ritchie (1G, 1A), Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat paved the way to the dominant win while Casey Cizikas notched two assists. Ilya Sorokin stopped all 29 shots he faced in his second shutout of the season – and second on the trip. John Gibson turned aside 21 of 26 shots in the Red Wings fourth loss of the season on home ice.
“We played a simple game and just rolled from there,” Cizikas said. “It wasn’t anything really pretty, it was north hockey and we capitalized our chances when we had them.”
The Islanders are coming home with a record of 6-1-0 on their seven-game trip, which ties a franchise record for most wins on a single road trip. The only other time the Islanders recorded six wins on the same road trip came at the end of the 2015-16 season, where they also went 6-1-0 from Feb. 19 – Mar. 6, 2016.
“What we see is clarity,” Head Coach Patrick Roy said. “We know that the way we’re playing, we can win a lot of games. What I love about the road trip is presence. We stayed in the present moment instead of looking at the scoreboard and being satisfied.”