For everything that’s gone sideways for the Islanders in this month-old season, one thing has gone unequivocally and absolutely right. That is Ilya Sorokin.
For two periods on Saturday night, the goalie again carried the Islanders.
And then late in the third — with the game seemingly in hand — the Islanders collapsed, coughing up a two-goal lead and losing to the Devils 4-3 after Stefan Noesen tied the game late in regulation and Jack Hughes won it in overtime.
They spent most of this night under heavy fire from a skilled and talented Devils lineup from the early going in this one, struggling to possess the puck and mostly happy to keep the Devs to the outside.
That may not be how they would prefer to play, but it is not all too different a formula from how they’ve established themselves in winning four of five despite five regulars being out of the lineup with injury.
To some extent, it is a necessary strategy.
Not, however, to the extent they were hemmed in Saturday, which required repeated bailouts from the goalie, including Sorokin going into the splits to stop Hughes late in the second period following an inexcusable turnover from Grant Hutton deep in the zone.
That allowed the Islanders to make it into the third period tied at one despite the run of play having gone the wrong way for just about the entire night, and it appeared as though they had set themselves up for victory.
Dennis Cholowski broke the deadlock, strolling down the slot and snapping in Simon Holmstrom’s feed at the 10:29 mark of the third to make it 2-1.
It was Holmstrom’s second point of the game — his first multipoint game of the season — and the floodgates opened from there. Brock Nelson made it 3-1 just two minutes later, finishing Kyle Palmieri’s feed off the rush.
The Islanders, it appeared, had survived the first two periods in order to thrive in the third.
But that did not spell the end of the Devils, as Dawson Mercer scored off Cotter’s centering feed with 4:27 left in regulation.
As has become practically the expectation when these two teams play, the Devils tied the game skating at six-on-five when Noesen banked the puck off Hutton and in.
Finally in overtime, Hughes got behind the Islanders off the rush and sent the puck past Sorokin to complete a mess of a loss.
Despite constant pressure from New Jersey in the first period, Holmstrom scored the opener to put the Islanders up 1-0, finishing off an inch-perfect Kyle MacLean feed to the slot by going around Jacob Markstrom.
The Islanders’ lead, though, belied the game flow that saw Sorokin called into action regularly, making key stops on a Nico Hischier rush chance and a Noesen tip in particular.
Sorokin was finally beaten by the elder Hughes brother 40 seconds into a Devils power play, with Hughes rifling a snapshot from the left circle that beat him through traffic 5:57 into the second.
The Islanders, who are trying to make it work down half their defense corps, never seemed to get their footing against a deep and skilled forward group as the makeshift bottom pair of Hutton and Cholowski in particular appeared out of their element.
As much as Isaiah George’s emergence has been a breath of fresh air for the blue line, it is a fact of life that a team missing five regulars and three of its defensemen is going to struggle to clear the zone some nights.
That does not make it an excuse, particularly when the goalie is as dialed in as Sorokin was Saturday.
