In Elmont, the New York Islanders lost their ninth straight, 2-1, to the San Jose Shakes, in extra time, on Thursday night.
Erik Karlsson picked up the game-winner for San Jose with just scored 39 seconds gone in the extra session.
“I think tonight was a good indication we’re headed in the right direction,” New York’s Anders Lee said. “I think at times when we got [penalized], and I think it killed a little bit of our momentum, but our penalty killers got it right back and had a really strong game. We’ve just got to find a way to get that extra point at the end there.”
The Sharks improved to 13-9-1.
“I just stayed in there and I knew there was a chance that [Meier] would find me,” Karlsson said. “He’s got some good vision going for himself right now and he made a perfect pass and I just had to tap it in.”
Adin Hill made 24 save in the San Jose win.
“I don’t know how many shots that came from the blue line actually got to our net, so it shows what a good job our guys have done with blocking shots and it’s commitment,” Hill said. “Everyone in that locker room is committed to playing a defensive game and we like to win these tight games. That’s our identity.”
New York dropped to 5-10-3.
“I think that everybody’s helping each other out and we’re battling for each other and we’re doing what we feel we have to do to give ourselves a chance to win at the end of the game and today was a perfect example of that,” Karlsson said. “I think we just stuck with it, weren’t getting frustrated and we just kept putting the puck in and creating and taking what we got.
“We weren’t concerned how long it was going to take. We knew that by the end of the third we were going to have a chance to win the game and get it done in overtime.”
Mathew Barzal scored to give the Islanders a 1-0 lead.
“Anytime you score on your first shift, it lifts you, and you feel good and it’s obviously nice just to get one here at UBS in front of our fans,” Barzal said. “It feels good and then we move on, but unfortunately we lost.”
Nick Bonino replied for the Sharks to tie the game, 1-1.
“We have to grind teams down, grind wins out,” San Jose head coach Bob Boughner said. “We have to do it as a team, and we have to do it a certain way. Managing the puck, managing leads and being in tight games … we’re a lot more comfortable in those games than we have been in the past couple years.”
Ilya Sorokin made 33 saves in the Isles loss.
“I felt good tonight,” Lee said. “I had my legs, I think our line (Lee, Barzal, Josh Bailey) started off really well and we felt good tonight. One of those nights when the chances were coming and we felt that all we needed was one more opportunity, one more puck and we were going to pop one. We just didn’t get that, but it’s a game us three can build off of and the team as a whole can too.”
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