Mat Barzal scored the game-winning goal 68 seconds in and then the New York Islanders decided to add eight more, just for insurance.<\/p>\n
There was more, of course \u2014 much more \u2014 to their 9-0 blowout of the New Jersey Devils, including a classic story of hockey goaltending. Ilya Sorokin made a triumphant return from injury to set the Islanders franchise mark for shutouts (again, the Islanders emptied the bench after the milestone\u2026but that\u2019s because they won the damned game).<\/p>\n
Sorokin absolutely earned it, keeping the score close, then comfortable, then laughable on his way to making 45 saves. At the other end, the Islanders scored on three of their first four shots as they picked corners on Jacob Markstrom all night long.<\/p>\n
The Islanders didn\u2019t have tons of chances early on, but most of them emerged from an increasingly frustrated Devils squad getting stymied at one end, then letting the Isles cruise down to the other.<\/p>\n
Oh, also: Anthony Duclair returned from two games of healthy scratches to get his fourth NHL hat trick and first with the Isles. (Also: he was +6.) It was a five-point night for Duclair, who only figured in just over half the Islanders goals, as they tied the franchise record for nine-goal margin of victory.<\/p>\n
It should be noted that all of this happened with top scorer Bo Horvat still out of the lineup, and all of this could have gone very differently if Sorokin didn\u2019t make some seriously acrobatic saves to keep the score 1-0, 2-0, 3-0 in the first period.<\/p>\n
J-G Pageau and Jonathan Drouin get the raspberry award for being the only two Islanders not to be a plus on the +\/- ledger. On the other side, someone who goes by the name of Arseny Gristyuk was the only Devil not hit with a minus.<\/p>\n
Barzal\u2019s opener was a rare but incisive one-timer, but he also had another beautiful long cross-slot pass to set up Duclair\u2019s hat trick goal. The one-timer to make it 1-0:<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s Duclair\u2019s hat trick goal:<\/p>\n
Duclair\u2019s first two goals were from nearly identical spots \u2014 this one was his first (but his second later in the first period came from the same angle after a brilliant backhand stretch pass from Casey Cizikas):<\/p>\n
Simon Holmstrom \u2014 using his crazy long reach to slip it around Markstrom from below the goal line \u2014 Casey Cizikas, Tony DeAngelo and Calum Ritchie also scored.<\/p>\n
The final two goals were in the final 90 seconds and would\u2019ve felt gratuitous if the Sheldon Keefe-coached Devils hadn\u2019t just handed easy turnovers and odd-man rushes to the Isles. After the eighth goal, there was a little bit of \u201crough\u201d (to put it generously) stuff at the ensuing faceoff, but it amounted to nothing. The Devils took zero penalties in the game and then let Cizikas finish scoring at 19:02 on a 2-on-1 pass from Duclair.<\/p>\n
Run up the score? Sure. But what else are you supposed to do when the baby is just handing you candy?<\/p>\n
What a crazy, lopsided, fun and historic night.<\/p>\n
Sorokin looked good. Reeeaaallly goood. The rest definitely helped whatever ailed him, he did not labor at all while making the kinds of \u201care you kidding me?\u201d saves that crush spirits.Cole McWard played his second game. Tough to evaluate anything in a 9-0 laugher.Emil Heineman was one of six Islanders skaters who failed to record points, but he easily could\u2019ve had two or three.The Devils are still battling through injuries and clearly had an off night but\u2026not a lot of fire and brimstone in that squad. Wondering if Keefe\u2019s \u201ctalented but not playoff ready\u201d rep is going to stay with him.Ryan Pulock pulled ahead of Kenny Jonsson on the franchise all-time list for assists by defensemen. And of course Sorokin now stands alone atop the franchise shutout list, ahead of Chico Resch and Billy Smith.It\u2019s funny to think back on how, as prospects, we worried that both Anders Lee and Sorokin might never wear the uniform, and now they are on the franchise leaderboard.<\/p>\n
Heh. \u201cIn terms of offensive chance generation, probably the best we\u2019ve played in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
What a way to send them off on a season-long road trip. Seven games, spanning all time zones, starting Thursday with a visit to Uncle Barry in Nashville.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mat Barzal scored the game-winning goal 68 seconds in and then the New York Islanders decided to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5110],"tags":[5,122,3328,159,28169,5190,5189,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-394879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-islanders","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-islanders","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-islanders","12":"tag-new-york-islanders-game-recaps","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkislanders","15":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115851952509109289","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}