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As the second period ended on Thursday night, the UBS Arena crowd let out a cheer. Innocuous as that may be, those moments have been few and far between this year for an Islanders team that has so often failed to live up to standards.
But on Thursday, in need of a get-right game after losing three of four, the Islanders got just that, recording a dominant 6-0 victory over the Blue Jackets, their most-lopsided win of the season, on the back of Anders Lee’s first career hat trick, to move within two games of .500 (22-24-8).
Even more encouraging, the Islanders played their kind of hockey, driving play on the forecheck, taking advantage of the opportunities that fell into their laps and avoiding the mistakes that have so often addled their play this season.
The Islanders want to play low-event games? That’s just what this was. They made it hard for their opposition, held the Blue Jackets to 31 shots, of which Ilya Sorokin stopped all, and killed off a myriad of penalties. With that being the dominant factor in the game, the Islanders’ offensive struggles didn’t matter so much — they didn’t need to score five goals to win.
But they ended up with six.
Most of the scoring came in a three-goal second period, in which Josh Bailey started off the festivities by snapping an 18-game goal-less streak, scoring off a one-legged feed from Kyle Palmieri at 6:08 to give the Isles a 2-0 lead.
Lee was next up, converting a free look from the slot at 13:49 after some relentless forechecking by Anthony Beauvillier and a perfect drop-pass from Adam Pelech. Jean-Gabriel Pageau made it a 4-0 game with a four-on-three goal from an odd-man rush with Ryan Pulock.
In between, the Islanders took four penalties in the period, and killed them all — on their way to a five-for-five night on the PK.
As a reward, they got something even more rare this season than an ovation from the home crowd: a relatively stress-free third period. Lee’s second goal, off a rebound from Beauvillier, made it 5-0 at 11:57. His third goal, a power play tally with 1.3 seconds left in the game, made for his hat trick.
Brock Nelson opened the scoring for the Islanders at 10:32 of the first with a five-on-three tally off the rush, spinning past Zach Werenski before beating Joonas Korpisalo. Just before that, Sorokin came up with a huge stop on Boone Jenner after Noah Dobson’s misplay led to a Columbus breakaway.
In a plodding first period where neither team reached the double-digit shot mark, there wasn’t much more action. Just the way the Islanders like it.
Fifth place in the Metropolitan — to be fair, the most meaningless of distinctions — is now within their sights, as the Islanders are down just seven points on the Blue Jackets with four games in hand (and two more contests against Columbus this month).
That is a silver lining to end all silver linings, one that speaks poorly of what this Islanders season has been reduced to.
On Thursday, though, the Islanders were content to get back to their game, even if only for a night.
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