In Elmont, the Islanders’ Semyon Varlamov made 41 saves in a 2-0 shut out of the visiting Nashville Predators on Saturday. 
“He was outstanding. He looks so confident out there,” Islanders coach Patrick Roy said. “It looked like it was an easy game. I was happy to see him play that way. We needed it. It’s four games in six nights for us. Guys might have been a bit tired, and I think that’s the reason why we had a few more turnovers than normal, but our goalie gave us the chance to win this game tonight. He won the game for us tonight.”
The win pushed the Isles into third in the Metropolitan Division.
“When we had to kill, we killed,” Varlamov said. “Guys blocked a lot of shots, especially from (Roman) Josi, he was shooting the whole night tonight. So, the PK was a key for us tonight. [Nashville] is a very skilled offensive team.
“Some pucks I saw and some pucks I didn’t, a couple of times I thought I got lucky. They missed a few, like, opportunities. Luck was definitely on my side today.”
New York improved to 35-27-15, they are two points clear of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 5-4, on Saturday.
“From the start of the game, we had everyone buying into what we needed to do to be successful,” New York’s Casey Cizikas said. “That’s a good hockey team over there. They’ve had a lot of success lately. For what we did out there, it’s a lot to be proud of, a lot to learn from, and we just got to keep this thing going.”
Noah Dobson staked the Islanders to a 1-0 lead at 9:07 of the middle frame, scoring off a shot from the point on the right side.
“Good play by Barzal getting the puck up top, and [Reilly] made a nice play to have some good poise to get it back over to me,” Dobson said. “I just tried to get my head up and find the shot, and [Cizikas] did a great job in front with the screen.”
The Predators dropped to 44-29-4 off their fourth loss in five matches.
Nashville is seven points clear of the St Louis Blues for the second wild card in the Western Conference.
“I think we’re playing some good hockey. We were on a really good stretch, and it’s just, sometimes, the bounces and momentum of the game and stuff,” Nashville’s Anthony Beauvillier said. “It was a good game tonight. We had a lot of chances, just couldn’t score and ran into a really good, hot goalie tonight. So, sometimes you have to tip your cap and move forward.”
Kyle Palmieri hit an empty net at 18:41 for the 2-0 final count on the scoreboard. 
Kevin Lankinen made 28 saves in the loss.
“I thought it was a good hockey game,” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “They were a desperate team. I thought they defended their blue paint really well. I thought we did a lot of good things all through the ice, all through the game. Maybe we were a little bit sluggish early, and I thought we got going. We just couldn’t buy a goal late in the game.”
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