After a shutout loss on Saturday, coach Lane Lambert responded by rolling out new forward lines for the Islanders on Monday against the Devils.
Zach Parise and Hudson Fasching got moved from the third line to the first, alongside Bo Horvat, while Anders Lee and Simon Holmstrom made up the fourth line with Jean-Gabriel Pageau at center. Pierre Engvall, Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri stayed intact as the second line, as did Matt Martin, Casey Cizikas and Cal Clutterbuck as the fourth line.
“Sometimes just a little switch can spark the lineup,” Pageau told The Post on Monday morning.
In this case, it did, as the Isles beat the Devils 5-1, pulling away with three goals in the final five minutes, but controlling play throughout.
“I liked the changes,” Lambert said after the win. “I thought Anders was good. Pageau was good and I thought Horvat was good tonight. There was certainly some positives there with the changes. We’ll see where we go from here.”
Though the (unchanged) second line was by far the best, the Islanders rolled all four lines and dictated play against a team they might well see in the first round of the playoffs.
Even better, Horvat broke an 11-game scoring drought with an empty-net tap-in, with Cizikas making a point to get the puck to him for what was in essence a free goal.
Earlier in the day, Horvat said he felt like he was getting his chances and needed a bounce to go his way. The hope is that this was it.
On a night where there wasn’t much negative to say about the Isles, though, Horvat’s line was the only one whose underlying stats told a different story, as it was outshot 10-2 and out-chanced 14-3, per Natural Stat Trick.
Holmstrom drew back into the lineup for Josh Bailey, skating for 11:49 with one shot on net.
Sebastian Aho skated with the team on Monday morning for the first time since suffering an upper-body injury in San Jose on March 18, though Samuel Bolduc stayed in the lineup against the Devils. Lambert sounded inclined to put Aho back in the lineup over Bolduc when asked about the eventual decision.
“Sebastian has played very well all year long,” he said. “Sam came in, he played well, he’s a big body, got a longer reach. But there’s differences to both their games and there’s strengths to both their games. That’s a good problem to have, just like anything else, when you get numbers.”
Mathew Barzal will not travel to Washington with the team for Wednesday’s game and has yet to start skating, Lambert said.
