In Elmont, the visiting Los Angeles Kings stormed out to 2-0 lead in the first period and the held off the Islanders for a 3-2 win.
Quinton Byfield and Andreas Athanasiou scored in the opening stanza to give the Kings the early lead.
“I think our team does a good job of just staying in the moment, one game at a time,” Los Angeles head coach Todd McLellan said. “This was the most important game of the trip, until now. The most important game of the trip is the next one (at the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday).
“We’ve had to win different ways, but the common denominator is checking. We’ve been able to check our way to wins, and patience a little bit within the game, waiting for opportunities. That’ll have to continue on. … When you’re on the road for two weeks, it’s a long time, but when you put some points in the bank, you can enjoy the trip a little bit at least.”
Cal Petersen made 23 saves in the LA win.
“That was a big goal (Athanasiou),” the Kings’ Drew Doughty said. “That put us up two. [Athanasiou] hasn’t played in a long, long time, and to see him score, [he’s] so skilled and I think he’s scored 30 in the League before (2018-19 with Detroit Red Wings), so we need him in the lineup and we need him to be playing to be at our best. That was huge for us.”
The Kings improved to 22-16-6.
“I knew I had the one defender beat and wanted to take it kind of wide, almost like freeze the defender. … I got another step and just a quick release,” Byfield said. “It found the back of the net. It was a good feeling.”
Mathew Barzal got the Isles within 2-1 with his goal in the middle frame.
“L.A. had nothing tonight, they really didn’t have much, and I thought we generated a little bit more,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. “They defended well, they clogged it up. They defended well, and it was hard to generate. They were looking for a low-scoring game, and we generally do. We’re not going to trade chances with some of the teams, but we’ve got to go to the net. We’ve got to put the puck in play.”
New York dropped to 15-15-6.
“Tonight was a night it didn’t go in,” New York’s Anders Lee said. “If we put a couple in, [Pelech] goes down and in, the other pipe that we had from Robin goes down and in, we’re talking about how great our defensemen scored goals tonight. It’s a game of inches. It didn’t go our way, but of course we want to generate as much as we can and put pucks in the net.”
LA’s Adrian Kempe hit an empty-net goal with 36 seconds left in the game for a 3-1 Kings lead.
“[The win] was all that I was worried about today,” Doughty said. “I didn’t want the 1,000 thing to be a distraction and to not show up and win a hockey game. It couldn’t have went any better. That was perfect. Great way to do it.”
The Isles’ Casey Cizikas scored with 20 seconds left on the clock for the 3+-2 final.
Semyon Varlamov made 27 saves in the New York loss.
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