In Elmont, the New York Islanders were shut out by the Washington Capitals’ Vitek Vanecek, who made 23 saves in a 2-0 victory on Saturday.
“I wasn’t thinking about it; I want to try and help the team,” Vanecek said. “I know we’d lost four games in a row and I tried to help the team win the game.”
The Caps improved to 21-8-9.
“I thought Vitek was really good,” Washington head coach Peter Laviolette said. “He’s had some good practice days to get back into a rhythm. He wasn’t real busy, and sometimes those are the tougher games to stay into, just because the action’s not as heavy. But when we did need some saves, I thought he was focused.”
Tom Wilson scored in the first period for a 1-0 lead to the Caps.
“We had a little disconnect the last couple of games,” Wilson said. “[The Islanders] have a heavy forecheck, so we were forced to come back in the zone, help our [defensemen] break it out, break out with speed, get our feet moving.
“We were rolling them over for the first 40 minutes. I think they had a bit of a wave in the third where they pushed a little bit, but that’s expected. We weathered it for two or three shifts and got back to work. We’ve got to take the two points and keep building on that.”
The Islanders dropped to 11-13-6.
“It felt like a game where we had a layoff,” Islanders associate coach Lane Lambert said. “I was expecting more of a lack of execution potentially last game (a 3-2 win against the New Jersey Devils on Thursday) than this game. But certainly, we knew the magnitude of the game. We didn’t get the result.”
Alex Ovechkin scored into an empty net for the 2-0 final in the last two minutes of the third period.
Semyon Varlamov made 34 saves in the New York loss.
“I don’t think it was our best game overall,” New York’s Anders Lee said. “I think there were periods where they put the pressure on pretty good. At the end of the day, it’s a one-goal game. ‘Varly’ gave us a great chance, a great opportunity, and we come up short at the end.
“We understand that we could’ve played a lot better earlier on, but we played good enough to give ourselves a chance at the end.”
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