Kings 3, Islanders 0 (EN): Back-to-back gets them, 6-game win streak ends
Rittich got the shutout, but he didn’t have to do a ton for it, to be honest. | Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images
They also fall out of a playoff spot for the time being. Win streaks don’t last forever. Sometimes, that’s for the best because it keeps a team sharper. That’s what the New York Islanders will try to take away from tonight’s shutout loss to the Los Angeles Kings that snapped their six-game winning streak and technically dropped them out of the playoff picture.
To be fair to the Isles, they had everything working against them tonight. They played the night before, while the Kings had been off since Saturday. The Kings got shellacked at home in their last game, so they had that extra motivation. The Islanders have played well of late, and this was a schedule loss. They played a fairly tight game, although they weren’t the team that wasn’t able to take advantage of the sloppier moments.
Hudson Fasching rejoined the lineup for the first time since leaving January 25’s game against the Montreal Canadiens with a lower-body injury. Matt Martin was listed as day-to-day with his own lower-body injury. Ilya Sorokin made his way back to the crease after a night off in Orange County, going against David Rittich. It was the 800th game of Kyle Palmieri’s career and the 700th of J-G Pageau’s.
[NHL Gamecenter | Game Summary | Event Summary | Natural Stat Trick]
First Period
The Kings had legs early after their beating by the Stars the other night but earned no shots to show for it. Fasching had a strong first couple of shifts back, along with the fourth line. The Islanders got the game’s first power play when Adrian Kempe went into Sorokin, although Adam Pelech may have been a bit of a help in getting him there. A gong show of officiating briefly gave the Isles a five-on-three power play before they negated it with the worst slashing call I’ve ever seen against Mathew Barzal.
LA got a full power play when Noah Dobson appeared to high-stick Philip Danault, although the replay wasn’t exactly convincing. Pageau and Palmieri rushed up ice off the first faceoff for a chance created by Rittich’s misplay. That was probably the most dangerous opportunity for a puck near the net during the power play, which spanned exactly the final two minutes of the period.
Second Period
The Kings’ speed and rest overwhelmed the Islanders in the second period, surely exacerbated by the long change. Coming out of the first TV timeout, Fasching took a hard shot on a rush chance that popped out of Rittich’s glove. Kempe took it the other way for a rush chance of his own. Reilly got back to block it, but the puck ticked off his stick to fool Sorokin. 1-0 Kings.
Possibly to fire up his teammates or possibly out of a little frustration, Barzal—yes, that Barzal—threw a punishing hit on the forecheck on rookie Jacob Moverare.
Enforcer, Mathew Barzal pic.twitter.com/mDZ2rDd2CF— Rob Taub (@RTaub_) March 12, 2024
Bo Horvat was called for interference even though the replay showed that it was a puck battle. Fiala got a dangerous one-timer early on, but PL Dubois took a lazy tripping penalty to end the power play with 21 seconds left on it. The ensuing power play for the Islanders wasn’t very good either, though, and in fact were probably lucky not to give up a shorthanded goal. Pierre Engvall’s leftover rush chance after the man advantage ended and then a short blitz by the top line with a minute remaining were the only threats.
Third Period
The Islanders tried to make up for the sloppier second period by pushing to start the third. On one chance, Sebastian Aho dipsy-doodled through two defenders to feed Engvall. But some lost coverage wasn’t recovered in time by Dobson, and Moore threw a pass along the goal line that deflected off Sorokin’s pad and came right to Danault for a tap-in. 2-0 Kings.
With the Islanders continuing to push, they got a power play when Dubois tripped Barzal coming out of a scrum behind the Los Angeles net. Unfortunately, they had nothing at all going on the power play. Palmieri drew another tripping penalty, this one against Trevor Lewis. Starting with the second unit, the Isles moved the puck better on this one, but they couldn’t get anything threatening on Rittich.
Patrick Roy didn’t pull Sorokin until they got below the 3:00-minute mark, but they didn’t even get a shot off before LA hit the empty net; Moore intercepted a Dobson blue line pass. 3-0 Kings and that was that.
Up Next
The Islanders actually have one more game on this road trip back east against the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. ET. Buffalo has been better of late—and we need them to beat the Detroit Red Wings tomorrow night—but that’s a winnable game. So will be early Saturday afternoon’s home game against the Ottawa Senators before a tougher four-game stretch. Gotta get those points....
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