On Long Island, the New York Islanders continued their torrid streak with a 5-4 win over the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night.
Anthony Beauvillier struck for two goals in the win.
The Isles were 2-for-3 on the power play.
“Our power play was really good and our penalty kill was pretty good today (2-for-2),” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. “Our 5-on-5, our 6-on-5 towards the end, we’ve got to clean that up. That might be our meeting tomorrow.”
Semyon Varlamov made 23 saves.
“The bottom line is we’re through 20 games now, and when you evaluate what we’ve done in 20 games, we don’t like it as a group,” Toronto coach Mike Babcock said. “We think we can be better, and we’ll identify the areas again here tomorrow as we go through it and grind our way out of this.
“We got ourselves in the spot we’re in, we’ve got to grind our way out of it.”
John Tavares, Kasperi Kapanen, Justin Holl, and William Nylander all scored for the Leafs.
“I think we played a good game for the most part,” Nylander said. “We’ve just got to sharpen up on a few things to not let them score goals.”
Derick Brassard and Mathew Barzal scored for New York
“When you’re an offensive player, sometimes you go out there and that’s when you get your touches, your confidence,” Brassard said of the power play. “Special teams can win you some games, and tonight our power play was clicking.”
Casey Cizikas had an empty net goal for the Isles, who have a 13-game point streak going.
“We let loose a little bit at moments during the game,” Beauvillier said. “[Varlamov] was there for us. I thought we did a good job sticking with it. The PK and power play were good tonight.”
[WATCH: All Maple Leafs vs. Islanders highlights]
Frederik Andersen made 25 saves.
“It feels like when we do make a mistake it seems to really hurt us, because I thought, especially in the first period, we had a pretty good first period until they got their first goal and then they capitalize on the power play and got the momentum,” Tavares said. “We played really well again in the second, didn’t come out the greatest in the third, and they got another power-play goal, so special teams really hurt us today.
“It just seems like when we do make a mistake, we’re getting burned. I think parts of this game, we did a lot of good things. We tried to stay patient, stayed with it, got ourselves back in it, but just too many mistakes leading to too many [goals] against.”
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