![\"Andrew](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768551521_126_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nEDMONTON, Alberta \u2014 Ilya Sorokin, with plenty of sound structural support from the Islanders\u2019 defensemen, was up to the Connor McDavid challenge. <\/p>\n
Of course, there was a dash of good fortune thrown in, too. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big shutout against the best player in the league,\u201d Sorokin said. <\/p>\n
The goalie\u2019s 35-save masterpiece, his fifth shutout of the season and the franchise-record 27th of his career, paced the Islanders\u2019 1-0 win over the Oilers on Thursday night at Rogers Place. <\/p>\n
Edmonton superstar McDavid had his point streak snapped at a career-high 20 games. He had produced a Wayne Gretzky-like 19 goals and 27 assists in that span. <\/p>\n
This despite the Oilers playing up ice most of the game and outshooting the Islanders 23-6 in the final two periods. Anthony Duclair\u2019s goal at 13:42 of the third period on the Islanders\u2019 lone power-play chance stood up. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think we had a great game tonight defensively,\u201d Sorokin said. \u201cThe discipline was good tonight, just two penalty kills. We were fighting at our net. And luck was on our side tonight; they hit two posts in the last minute. So it\u2019s a big win against a big team.\u201d <\/p>\n
Leon Draisaitl hit the far post from the right circle with 36 seconds left in regulation and the Oilers skating six-on-five. Defenseman Evan Bouchard\u2019s apparent power-play tally 32 seconds into the third period was ruled no goal as a video review confirmed the puck hit the crossbar and the far post but never crossed the goal line. <\/p>\n
So the Islanders (26-16-5) improved to 2-1-1 on this seven-game road trip with their first regulation road win since Dec. 6 (they were 2-4-2). They also snapped a six-game losing streak at Rogers Place, where they had lost 12 of 14 games since 2007-08. <\/p>\n
Connor Ingram stopped 17 shots for the Oilers (23-17-8), but his strong performance was overshadowed by Sorokin\u2019s. <\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, he\u2019s in a zone,\u201d rookie defenseman Matthew Schaefer said. \u201cSometimes I don\u2019t even want to give him a tap [on his pad] but I want to so bad because he\u2019s making so many stops, I need to give him a tap to say thank you.\u201d <\/p>\n
All three defense pairs \u2014 Schaefer with Ryan Pulock, Adam Pelech with Tony DeAngelo and Adam Boqvist with Scott Mayfield \u2014 took turns trying to keep the Oilers\u2019 offensive talent to the outside. Schaefer logged a game-high 26:35 and Pelech was on the ice for 24:06. <\/p>\n
DeAngelo dived to break up McDavid\u2019s scoring chance at 7:39 of the first period before McDavid recovered to feed Zach Hyman at the crease, where he was stoned by Sorokin. <\/p>\n
Sorokin also turned aside in-tight shots from McDavid less than three minutes later, Kasperi Kapanen and Vasily Podkolzin in the first 90 seconds of the second period and McDavid off a rush at 11:12 of the third period. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we defended really well,\u201d coach Patrick Roy said. \u201cYes, they had some good looks, and when they had those, Ilya was outstanding. And our power play came through. It\u2019s a big win for us.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sorokin was coming off Tuesday\u2019s 5-4 loss in Winnipeg in which he made only 17 saves behind a leaky defensive effort. <\/p>\n
NaturalStatTrick.com calculated the Oilers dominated the Corsi for percentage 63.25-36.75 in all situations and had a 19-10 edge in high-danger chances. <\/p>\n
The Islanders were being outshot 8-0 in the third period when Draisaitl tripped Schaefer in the offensive zone at 12:00. Cal Ritchie fed Duclair\u2019s rising shot as the Islanders scored their first power-play goal in six games. They were 0-for-7 in that span. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk about the power play each and every day and how we can improve it,\u201d Duclair said. \u201cThis is the type of game where we need to bury our chance.\u201d <\/p>\n
Roy shuffled his lines quickly, moving struggling Jonathan Drouin \u2014 who has gone 24 games without a goal \u2014 out of the top six to Jean-Gabriel Pageau\u2019s third line with Simon Holmstrom while using Max Shabanov on Ritchie\u2019s left wing alongside Emil Heineman. <\/p>\n
Of course, Ritchie\u2019s trio recorded a dismal Corsi for percentage of 7.14, according to NaturalStatTrick.com. <\/p>\n
Notes & quotes: Defenseman Cole McWard, a healthy scratch for the third straight game, was named Bridgeport\u2019s lone representative for the Atlantic Division squad at the 2026 AHL All-Star Classic on Feb. 10-11 in Rockford, Illinois. McWard has five goals and 11 assists in 29 games for Bridgeport .\u2002.\u2002. Holmstrom was elevated to the first power-play unit while Drouin moved to the second unit. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n\tAndrew 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\u2019s and MLB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON, Alberta \u2014 Ilya Sorokin, with plenty of sound structural support from the Islanders\u2019 defensemen, was up to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5110],"tags":[19698,5,122,3328,159,5190,5189,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-410451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-islanders","8":"tag-gamer","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-islanders","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-islanders","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkislanders","15":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115903798843914719","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410451","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=410451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}