In Elmont, Ilya Sorokin made 27 saves and the New York Islander edged out the St Louis Blues, 2=1, on Saturday afternoon.
“I think tonight felt right, just our game top to bottom,” New York’s Ryan Pulock said. “Guys were doing the right things, playing hard, being physical and engaged, blocking shots, all those little things.
“I think we’re a better team than the standings, and that’s on us. We haven’t been good enough, consistent enough. We’ve shown flashes here and there, but we’ve got to stick with that and every night bring that game. You never know, there’s still a lot of hockey to be played, so we’ve just got to stick with it.”
Robert Thomas was the Blues’ lone striker in the loss.
“[We were] flat for a couple of periods,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. “Third period we woke up and started doing things right, pressuring them. We had some opportunities and made it a one-goal game.”
St Louis dropped to 32-16-6.
New York took a 1-0 lead in the opening period off a strike from Oliver Wahlstrom .
“Ilya a had a great game, you think he might have a shutout or whatever,” New York coach Barry Trotz said. “He doesn’t really care if he has a shutout. He cares if we win, and we won. That’s sort of the mentality both of our goalies (Sorokin, Semyon Varlamov) have.”
Brock Nelson pushed the lead to 2-0 in the middle frame.
“You set benchmarks and goals along the way, and I think that’s been one throughout my career that you try to achieve,” Nelson said. “I’ve been able this year to get some pucks and I’ve played with some good players the last couple of years and had some success. It feels good.”
Jordan Binnington made 18 saves in the St Louis loss.
“Tough start to the game for us, and we finally got going in the third and really brought it to them,” Thomas said. “We just needed to do that for the first and second period.”
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