ELMONT, N.Y. — Goalie Ilya Sorokin might have been the best player on the UBS Arena ice on Thursday.
That just highlighted how slow and disorganized the Islanders appeared from the opening faceoff in a disheartening 4-1 loss to the dominant Devils.
Sorokin made 39 saves and kept the Islanders — who struggled mightily to complete passes — within a theoretical chance of making it a game until late in the third period. A lightly-tested Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 16 shots, his shutout spoiled by Anders Lee at 16:44 of the third period as the Islanders skated five-on-four.
The Islanders split their season-opening four-game homestand with a difficult first road trip now looming against the Lightning and Panthers on Saturday and Sunday. Those are the first two of four straight games against teams that made the playoffs last season.
Per Natural Stat Trick, the Devils had 14 high-danger chances to the Islanders’ four, the Isles were outshot 43-17. The offensive weakness led coach Lane Lambert to tweak his lines for the second straight game looking for a spark. It worked in Tuesday night’s 5-2 win over the Sharks.
Thursday night, not so much.
Lambert moved Lee to Mathew Barzal’s left wing along with Kyle Palmieri. Anthony Beauvillier, reunited with Barzal in the previous game, went right back to Brock Nelson’s line, this time with Josh Bailey. And Jean-Gabriel Pageau wound up between Zach Parise and Oliver Wahlstrom after Wahlstrom had the opportunity to skate with Nelson.
Sorokin’s strong play aside, a rare positive for the Islanders in the game was their continued success on the penalty kill as they cancelled all three Devils’ power plays, though yielding eight man-advantage shots. Troubling, though, was the Islanders taking three penalties in the offensive zone, including two by Lee.
The Devils’ dominant first period finally paid dividends in the second period when they took a 2-0 lead.
Defenseman Damon Severson’s head-man pass sprung Jack Hughes into the Islanders’ zone as he got past flat-footed and falling defenseman Alexander Romanov near the blue line. Hughes got to the crease and slid the puck between Sorokin’s pads at 1:35 of the second period.
Ondrej Palat made it 2-0 at 8:09 with a blistering shot from the low slot on a sequence that started with Nelson being pressured into a defensive-zone turnover. Palat scored his second at 15:28 of the third period and Nico Hischier added an empty-netter.
The Islanders started slowly and didn’t get their first shot until 16:53 of the first period when defenseman Noah Dobson sent a shot from the right wall that drew derisive cheers. The Islanders wound up being outshot 13-3 in the first, with two of those shots coming after Devils defenseman John Marino was called for hooking Kyle Palmieri at 17:09.
