If there was any chance of saving their season and avoiding being sellers at the trade deadline, the Islanders had to use this seven-game homestand to make some kind of statement.
And as the two weeks at home wrapped up against the Avalanche on Tuesday night, the Islanders added some punctuation to the narrative they’ve used this opportunity to craft: They’re not going anywhere.
Tuesday’s 5-2 victory over the Avalanche, with the club’s blue line looking a lot different than two weeks ago with the additions of Scott Perunovich and Tony DeAngelo, made it five wins in a row for the Islanders and eight of 10.
After dropping the first two games of the homestand in disastrous fashion, the Islanders are heading on the road having found their game and delivered in a way that was missing all season.
“I haven’t been here long,” Perunovich said after skating 17:42 in his Islanders debut, “but I can tell this is a really good hockey team. We played a really good game tonight.”
There is still a long, long way to go, and a lot of teams to jump if the Islanders are going to make it a third straight season in which a second-half rally pushes them over the playoff cutline.
But after a flurry of losses ahead of them on Tuesday, they are suddenly just four points back of a spot, with the chance to jump at least one team when they play the Flyers on Thursday.
They have found the physicality and defensive edge that was missing from their game all season. The penalty kill is no longer a running joke. Tenacity and resilience have returned.
“It really is just a testament to this group,” captain Anders Lee said, “that at no point, regardless of what point total we had or wins and losses that at any point were we thinking about giving up on this thing or anything other than finding a way.”
For so much of this season, the Islanders were a team that found a way to lose. Tuesday typified the opposite: they found a way to win, leaning on Ilya Sorokin throughout the second period before surging in the third.
On a night where three of the Islanders’ six blue-liners weren’t in the opening night lineup, the Avalanche spent much of the second knocking on the door after the two teams traded goals.
With Perunovich and DeAngelo still adjusting to the new system and the game looking a little fast for rookie Isaiah George, the Islanders needed their goalie to step up.
All the same, that’s just what Sorokin did, stopping 11 shots in the second to get the Islanders into the third period tied at one with a chance to steal the game away.
The Islanders did not kick that particular gift horse in the mouth.
It was Simon Holmstrom — whose return from injury has quietly played a major factor into this winning streak — who broke the 1-1 deadlock, going bar down from the right circle and catching Mackenzie Blackwood unaware just 1:54 into the third, giving the Islanders the lead.
Josh Manson appeared to tie the game back up with a shot through traffic less than three minutes later, but a gutsy challenge from Patrick Roy for goaltender interference — a rule that seems to have varying interpretations depending on the night — paid off, as the referees found Jack Drury’s presence in the blue paint enough to wave off the goal.
From there, the game flipped, with Lee putting the Islanders up by two and the home side easily responding after Drury cut the lead back to one.
Alexander Romanov extended the lead back to two with a seeing-eye shot from the left point before Holmstrom’s empty-netter put a bow on the game.
“It was an easy call,” Roy said of the challenge. “… The way I saw it, Ilya could not come out. [Drury] came in the crease by himself and there was no way [Sorokin] could move up. By the time the shot was taken, he got bumped by their guy.”
In the span of two weeks, the Islanders have changed the conversation around their team completely.
They suddenly look primed to do the same thing they’ve done the last two seasons and charge into the playoffs after everybody counted them out.
“Sometimes when our backs are up against the wall,” Lee said, “that’s when our push really shows.”
