On Long Island on Thursday night, the New York Islanders were terrible hosts as they posted three goals in the first period and effectively took the visiting New Jersey Devils out of the game in a 4-1 decision.
Anders Lee, Jordan Eberle and Michael Dal Colle scored in the first period to get the Isles their three-goal lead.
Anders Lee struck twice in win over Devils – file photo courtesy of Lewis Bleiman
“We take it day by day,” Lee said. “You don’t look ahead at anything and you continue to just get back to work. As awesome as it’s been and as great as it’s been, nothing’s happened. We still have a lot of hockey left. We’re just trying to continue to get better every day.”
The Isles improved to 27-15-4.
“We got on them early,” New York head coach Barry Trotz said. “One of the things you want to do is pull the life out of them after the first period. We just played the right way with the lead.”
Robin Lehner made 16 saves as he continues to prove he just needed a better team in front of him to get wins.
“We really did take control in the second period there and broke them down a little bit,” Lee said. “But you’ve got to give them credit; you see how they rebounded. Three-goal leads are tricky. Obviously, you talk about them all the time. They get that one, and all of a sudden it’s a close game. We just kind of had to stick with it and get back to where we were, and we did a great job.”
The Devils dropped to 18-22-7 with the loss.
Andy Greene provided the entire offense for the Devils.
“We have to continue to work on being stronger in front of our net. That’s something we’ve talked about,” Devils head coach John Hynes said. “We’ve got to do a better job coaching the guys, we’ve got to have guys that are willing to play in that area of the ice and take pride in that area of the ice.”
Lee added an empty-net goal late to seal the win.
[WATCH: All Devils vs. Islanders highlights]
Mackenzie Blackwood made 22 saves in the loss.
“We know they’re a very strong forecheck team and they have a heavy net presence.” Greene said after the loss. “When that happens … we lost positioning two times there on the first two and gave them two easy goals. It’s as simple as that. We’ve got to make sure we first at least get sticks, and then get body position. We lost both there.”
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