Islanders dull Sabres

In Uniondale, the New York Islanders continued to gather up standings points in a 5-2 win over Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night.

Matt Martin had two goals for the New York Islanders

Matt Martin had two goals for the Isles.

“Initially I was looking to find Casey and [Cal Clutterbuck] and they weren’t really open,” Martin said. “Everyone kind of gravitated to them. Then I took a look at the goalie and saw that he was down and just tried to put it there. Luckily, I was able to hit my spot and it went in.

Ilya Sorokin made 16 saves in the win.

Taylor Hall and Rasmus Ristolainen were the Buffalo strikers.

“No matter what the score is in the game, you have to defend hard,” Hall said. “I feel like at times through the goal-scoring drought you tend to overthink things and you tend to worry about not scoring instead of playing an overall game that’s solid and the goals will come. Tonight was a little bit better in that aspect.”

The Sabres continued their slide and now stand at 6-12-3.

The Islanders grabbed a 1-0 lead off a goal from Noah Dobson midway through the first period.

“I liked our response. There was no panic or anything,” Isles head coach Barry Trotz said. “I thought it was really necessary at the end of that period that we were at least 1-1 in that period. ‘Beau’s’ goal I thought really, I’ll say disheartened them a little bit because that was a good response goal and they had a little push on. … I thought it was a real huge goal for us.”

Anthony Beauvillier and Jordan Eberle also scored for New York to make the game, 3-1 and 4-2, respectively.

“We feel we have four lines and three sets of [defensemen] that can contribute,” Eberle said. “I think if you look at the minutes across the board, most nights are fairly even. That’s just (coach) Barry [Trotz] having confidence in everybody. That’s what makes our team such a good hockey club; we win by committee and each guy has a role.”

New York improved to 13-6-4.

Jonas Johansson made 40 saves. in the loss.

“I thought we came out of the gates first five, six minutes really well and had a good feeling on the bench, and the goals against just deflated us,” Sabres head coach Ralph Krueger said. “It’s a dangerous spiral right now and really disappointed with the overall game, but there are some things we’re going to have to take with [us] for the two games on the weekend against the same opponent.”