If the Islanders can close the deal over the last two weeks of the regular season, the 60 minutes they played on Monday night provide a compelling case that they will be a hard out in the playoffs.
After two straight losses, this was a chance to make a needed statement against a Devils team that could conceivably be the Isles’ first-round opposition.
And after the Islanders’ 5-1 victory at UBS Arena made that statement indeed, one must wonder whether that is a scenario New Jersey would rather avoid.
This was the polar opposite to Saturday’s energy-lacking effort against the Sabres: a high-intensity victory in which all 18 Islanders skated with verve.
The Islanders owned the neutral zone, their defensemen stepped up with an aggressive forecheck and they forced the Devils again and again to go 200 feet while harassed by blue sweaters.
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“I thought we stayed on top of them as best we possibly could,” coach Lane Lambert said. “To a man, everybody worked. There wasn’t any passengers.”
The result was a game in which structure trumped skill, the supposedly aging and slow Islanders looking to have every bit the speed to handle a deft and talented Devils squad.
Ilya Sorokin stepped up as well, with 30 saves, but this was a win that should leave the Islanders confident about more than their place in the standings.
The Islanders took an early lead when Pierre Engvall cleaned up Kyle Palmieri’s rebound chance 7:37 into the game, but the moments of truth in this victory came following Erik Haula’s shorthanded goal, which tied the game at one at 6:15 of the second period.
That was when, instead of folding, the Islanders bore down, stayed on top of the Devils and eventually retook the lead.
Palmieri netted what proved to be the winner at 14:21 of the second with a dazzling backhand finish to make it 2-1, roofing the puck after skating across the slot with it on his stick until the perfect lane opened up.
“I was hoping to get around and try and find [Engvall] on the backdoor,” Palmieri said. “The way it developed, I saw [Brock Nelson] coming down through the slot, I wanted him at first. It ended up just kinda being a bit of a cluster there. Found some space and try to get a shot off.”
Engvall said, more simply: “He was just holding on, holding on, holding on, made a sick play.”
For half a second, the Devils thought they’d tied the game when Tomas Tatar seemed to score at the 8:54 mark of the third, but the goal was almost immediately waved off for a kick.
That heart-in-mouth moment aside, the Islanders successfully walked a tightrope until Palmieri made it 3-1 with 4:35 to go, unleashing a wrister past Vitek Vanecek after a puck came to him in the slot.
When the Devils emptied their net, the floodgates opened, with Bo Horvat breaking an 11-game goal drought and Zach Parise getting on the board before the final buzzer.
The Isles walked away with two points that, combined with the Panthers losing, leaves their playoff chances a total collapse short of golden — the gap now six points between them and the cutline.
What left you optimistic was how fast the Isles played, how physical they were, how it was their fingerprints all over every piece of this game — sticks in every passing lane, bodies flying at every chance, including into Vanecek in the Devils’ crease.
That applied in particular to the second line of Engvall, Nelson and Palmieri, which Lane Lambert left untouched as he shook up the first and third lines.
“We’re a team that likes to get in on the forecheck,” Palmieri said. “In order to do that, you gotta eliminate guys and we did that in the D-zone.”
That, and the way the Isles rose to the occasion in a game they absolutely needed to take two points from.
There are no certainties until an ‘X’ appears next to the Islanders’ name in the standings, and that may not happen for some time. But never have their playoff chances looked better.
