In Elmont, the New York Islanders’ Mathew Barzal snapped a 2-2 tie with the New Jersey Devils to help send the Isles to a 3-2 win on Thursday night.
“I thought the first 53 minutes of the game for me wasn’t my best; a couple chances, but nothing crazy,” Barzal said. “Just a great pass by ‘Bails,’ so I let all that emotion out. I let 12 days of emotion out. It felt good.”
Ilya Sorokin made 30 saves in the New York win.
“[Sorokin] clearly made some really big saves at key moments,” Islanders associate Lane Lambert said. “Both our goalies have done that over and over again, but no question, there were two or three of them that were really key.”
Yegor Sharangovich staked New Jersey to a 1-0 lead in the first period.
“We were a little rusty at first, but once we got our legs under us a little bit, I thought we had a little better showing,” New Jersey’s Zach Parise said.
The Islanders improved to 11-12-6.
Josh Bailey and Adam Pelech, replied to that first goal with two strikes to give the Isles a 2-1 lead.
“I think we played well,” Bastian said. “I think we skated well. Maybe execution on a couple of plays … maybe we find the back of the net one more time, it’s a different game. We were right there until the last second. It would have been nice to get a point out of that one.”
New Jersey’s Nathan Bastian tried the game, 2-2, midway through the third period.
“I thought Jon played really well for us, gave us a real solid game,” New Jersey head coach Lindy Ruff said. “You look at the first two goals, really nothing you could do about them. The third one ends up being a heck of a shot.”
New Jersey dropped to 14-18-5.
Jon Gillies made 22 saves in the New Jersey loss.
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