Neither goalie seemed beatable – both went on to record shutouts – so Anders Lee realized relatively early that the first goal might be the winner.
“I thought about that like halfway through the game,” Lee told Newsday.
His instincts were right. The Islanders finally earned a 1-0 shootout victory over the Kraken on Sunday at UBS Arena in front of a second straight sellout crowd of 17,255.
Kyle Palmieri clinched it in the shootout’s fourth round after Bo Horvat connected in the third round to keep the Islanders’ hopes alive. The Kraken’s Freddy Gaudreau had scored in the first round.
David Rittich made 19 saves for his first shutout as an Islander while Joey Daccord stopped 34 shots as the Islanders were shut out for the first time this season.
“I think we’ve been playing really well,” Rittch said. “They had 19 shots so it tells you a lot of how much work the guys did. A lot of blocked shots (15 while the Kraken had 23), a lot of effort defensively.”
The Islanders (13-8-2) moved into second place in the Metropolitan Division after opening this seven-game homestand with a 2-1 loss to the Blues on Saturday following their 6-1-0 road trip.
“I thought it was a great team effort on a back-to-back, tough schedule,” coach Patrick Roy said. “We talked about it before the game, you don’t want to lose two in a row. It was nice to see Bo scoring that one because no one wanted to go back into the dressing room with a loss, even in a shootout.”
The Kraken (11-5-6), now coached by former Islanders’ bench boss Lane Lambert, had won 3-2 in overtime in Pittsburgh on Saturday.
“That’s a tough game to play,” Lee said. “We needed tonight regardless of how it was or how it looked. But I thought we played a really good hockey game.”
“I thought we played really well yesterday, too, could have easily won that game,” Horvat said. “Tonight, we were really good, carried the play a majority of the time and it was just kind of a battle of the goaltenders.”
Daccord made several sharp stops while controlling his rebounds and the Kraken kept the Islanders from getting traffic to the crease. He stopped Lee point blank from the slot at 17:19 of the first period and Jonathan Drouin’s two-on-one at 7:26 of the second period. Meanwhile, Rittich turned aside Jaden Schwartz’s point-blank shot at 17:46 of the second period and Schwartz’s good look from the left circle at 18:25 of the third period.
The Islanders’ pre-game news that third-line center and key penalty killer Jean-Gabriel Pageau was out on a week-to-week basis for an upper-body injury forced coach Roy to alter his forward lines.
Rookie Cal Ritchie was elevated from the fourth line to Pageau’s spot with rookie Max Shabanov coming with him to skate on left wing along with Simon Holmstrom. Casey Cizikas slid over from left wing to center a new fourth line with Anthony Duclair and Max Tsyplakov.
Lee was elevated to Barzal’s left wing along with Drouin while Horvat’s trio with Emil Heineman and Palmieri remained intact.
“Pager is a staple in this room and a staple on the ice,” Lee said. “He does it all out there in every situation. But our guys filled his shoes in those moments.”
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.