PHILADELPHIA — A gong present, this was not.
Any notions that lingering tensions over Max Tsyplakov’s hit on Ryan Poehling two weeks in the past would possibly erupt Thursday, with the Russian dealing with the Flyers for the primary time since, have been put to mattress fairly shortly.
Tsyplakov and Scott Laughton dropped gloves lower than 5 minutes into the sport, Tsyplakov misplaced his first profession struggle, and that was that.
As an alternative of being centered across the animosity that at a excessive level between these groups throughout their two latest matches at UBS Area, the Islanders and Flyers turned in a muddy, sloppy sport at Wells Fargo Middle.
Regardless of, the Islanders won’t be complaining after a 3-0 victory prolonged their successful streak to 6 in a row and resulted of their leaping the Flyers, Rangers and Canadiens within the Japanese Convention standings.
Of their final sport of the month, the Islanders additionally sealed their finest factors proportion in January since 1983 with a 9-3-0 document (.750), per group statistician Eric Hornick.
“I think we’re confident in our game, and I think what’s great is when things aren’t going well on a night like tonight, we don’t deviate,” Anders Lee instructed The Submit. “We don’t try to do too much. We stick with what makes us successful, and I think that worked itself out throughout our game, and the right opportunities came because of that.”
After a completely entertaining pair of wins over Carolina and Colorado, it might be beneficiant to place this one within the class of a grinding victory.
By the early levels, each groups just about simply regarded exhausted.
Nonetheless droll it was to look at, although, the Islanders acquired the higher of this specific warfare of attrition, taking a second-period lead earlier than locking it down within the third.
Simon Holmstrom broke a scoreless draw on the 10:02 mark of the second, rattling a puck off iron and in for a second consecutive sport.
Rookie winger Marc Gatcomb doubled the Islanders’ lead simply over 7 minutes later after the Flyers failed to choose him up on a line change, ending Kyle MacLean’s breakaway feed for a simple first NHL level and aim.
On an evening when Ilya Sorokin was near-unbeatable within the crease, two objectives regarded like they might be greater than sufficient.
And when Kyle Palmieri made it three, driving the online and beating Ivan Fedotov at four-on-four midway by way of the third, it put a bow on the match and broke a 14-game scoreless stretch for No. 21.
“I think all year, the highs and lows, we’ve reiterated our belief in each other,” Palmieri instructed The Submit. “And I don’t think that’s really something that’s wavered inside of our room. I think to be playing this way and getting rewarded for the way we’re playing right now, it’s huge.”
Seeing and believing, although, are two various things.
“You can talk about it ’til you’re blue in the face, but I think realistically, until the results are there, it’s hard,” Palmieri mentioned. “I think that the way we lost and pissed away points early in the season, it was even more frustrating. But I think as a team, we really just had to find it and get the ball rolling in the other direction. And that’s the way it’s going right now.”
The Flyers had gotten a puck by Sorokin early within the evening, showing to attain on a Matvei Michkov power-play shot.
However Sorokin regarded positive that he was interfered with, and after a problem by coach Patrick Roy, video evaluate confirmed Morgan Frost had impeded Sorokin’s capacity to make a play.
Sorokin, who has gone 4 straight begins with two or fewer objectives allowed, ended up stopping 23 photographs, at occasions bailing out the Islanders on an evening when their zone exits acquired messy a bit of too typically.
This would possibly depend because the ugliest victory of the Islanders’ present streak, but it surely additionally could also be one of the crucial necessary so far.
For all of the successful they’ve been doing this month, a transfer up the standings had but to materialize for the Islanders.
A minimum of for the second, it instantly has — with an opportunity to make up two essential factors on the Lightning on Saturday.
The standings are jam-packed proper now, with simply six factors separating the wild-card main Bruins from the Fifteenth-place Penguins in the beginning of Thursday.
What the Islanders do at some point simply could be undone the subsequent.
There could be no letup now.
However they’ve come an terrible good distance from a month in the past.
