Good Morning, Islanders Country.
For four games, the Islanders had been searching for the version of themselves Pete DeBoer spent the first month of the season trying to build.
Thursday night in Los Angeles, they found it again.
The 5-2 win over the Kings wasn’t perfect, but it looked a whole lot more familiar. The Islanders blocked a season-high 23 shots, got goals from five different skaters and, most importantly, cleaned up many of the things that had started slipping during their four-game winless streak.
“We put two good players back in the lineup, which helps, our goalie was great again, and we cleaned up the things that we didn’t like about last game,” DeBoer said after the win.
That pretty much summed it up.
Ryan Pulock and Matias Maccelli returned and immediately made the lineup look deeper. Ilya Sorokin was excellent again. Brayden Schenn contributed three points. Matthew Schaefer scored in his 100th NHL game. Victor Eklund stayed hot. Simon Holmstrom gave them some breathing room, and Bo Horvat finished it off. That’s what the Islanders need this to look like.
They are not built to survive on Sorokin stealing games while everyone else waits for something to happen. They need structure. They need layers. They need contributions from different places. And when they defend the way DeBoer wants them to defend, they give themselves a chance almost every night.
Thursday snapped the four-game winless streak and extended their point streak to three. One win doesn’t erase everything that went wrong over the previous week. But it did look like a reminder.
The Isles know what their game is supposed to be.
Let’s dive in.
Game Recap
Brayden Schenn had a goal and two assists, Victor Eklund scored for the fourth straight game, and the Islanders snapped a four-game winless streak with a 5-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday at Crypto.com Arena.
Schenn opened the scoring at 5:50 of the first, burying a rebound after Mitchell Chaffee tipped a Pulock point shot. Trevor Moore tied it at 8:55, but Schaefer put the Isles ahead for good on a power play at 12:56. Eklund made it 3-1 at 5:35 of the second, and after Quinton Byfield’s power-play goal at 7:52 pulled the Kings within one, Simon Holmström restored the two-goal lead 39 seconds into the third. Bo Horvat added an empty-netter at 17:14. Ilya Sorokin made 26 saves, and Darcy Kuemper stopped 16 in his 500th career game.
GameScore Impact Card
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders close out their California trip Saturday against the Anaheim Ducks. Face-off is 10:00 PM EST. Then it’s home to face Columbus on Tuesday at 7:00 PM.
📊 STANDINGS
Finally, some reinforcements
After weeks of talk about injured players getting closer to returning, the Islanders finally got two of them back in the lineup. Matias Maccelli and Ryan Pulock both returned Thursday night against Los Angeles with no restrictions. Maccelli has missed nine games since suffering a lower-body injury Oct. 17, while Pulock sat out four after getting hurt Oct. 29 in Minnesota.
Maccelli’s return could be particularly important for an offense that has struggled to create consistently during the four-game winless streak. He had six points in eight games and was riding a five-game point streak before getting hurt, and he immediately worked with the first power-play unit Thursday.
Pulock gave DeBoer back one of his most trusted penalty killers and defensive-zone players. “You want to help chip in. Doing a good job defensively is my first priority,” Pulock said. “Especially when you're sitting out a little while, it's nice to come back and get involved a little bit.”
Pageau Out
Because apparently nothing can be simple with this injury list, J-G Pageau missed Thursday’s game with a lower-body issue. Pageau participated in morning skate but couldn’t get himself to the point where he could play. DeBoer described him as day-to-day and said he does not believe the injury is serious. It will be Pageau’s first missed game of the season after appearing in all 17.
Pageau isn’t the flashiest player on the roster, but his absence changes a lot. He takes difficult defensive matchups, kills penalties, and remains one of the Islanders’ most dependable faceoff options.
Schaefer reaches 100 games
Matthew Schaefer played in his 100th NHL game Thursday in Los Angeles and became just the 25th defenseman in league history to reach 100 games while still a teenager. He also tied Jordan Staal as one of the youngest players ever to reach the milestone. And because Schaefer apparently can’t hit any normal milestone without dragging Hall of Famers into the conversation, he enters Game 100 with some remarkable company.
Schaefer has 77 career points, the fourth-most ever by a teenage NHL defenseman, and his 48 assists tie Bobby Orr and Scott Stevens for seventh. With a goal against Los Angeles, he has 29 through his first 100 games, one short of Brian Leetch and Phil Housley for second-most among defensemen in the modern era. The numbers are almost becoming background noise at this point.
📚 SOUND SMART: Per NHL PR, Matthew Schaefer became the fifth Islanders defenseman to score a goal in their 100th NHL game, following Noah Dobson (1-0—1 on Dec. 9, 2021), Scott Mayfield (1-0—1 on Nov. 18, 2018), Adam Pelech (1-0—1 on Jan. 30, 2018) and Andrew MacDonald (2-0—2 on March 5, 2011).
🎥 ISLES REWIND: On November 13, 1979, the Islanders doubled up the New York Rangers 10-5 in the famous contest dubbed the “Double Chili” game. An ongoing promotion offered fans a free bowl of Wendy’s chili if the Isles scored six goals. With the Isles up 6-2 halfway through the game, a Wendy’s executive in attendance declared that his establishment would provide two bowls of chili if the Isles reached double digits. Denis Potvin scored the 10th goal in the third period, and mouths were fed throughout Long Island.
📺 New York Islanders Postgame Availability | NYI at LAK
🔗 NHL On Tap: Schaefer can join NHL legends when Islanders visit Kings — NHL.com “Schaefer’s 100th game places him among only 25 defensemen ever to reach the milestone as a teenager, and his career production already puts him alongside names like Orr, Stevens, Bourque and Housley. Two goals Thursday would give him another historical mark, but his point-per-game sophomore start already makes the milestone remarkable enough.”
🔗 Islanders feeling the pressure to turn things around now — Nestor Quixtan, EyesOnIsles “The Islanders’ injuries explain why their depth has been tested, but they cannot allow a four-game skid to become the defining stretch of November. With regulars beginning to return, the expectation now shifts from surviving the absences to actually banking wins.”
And we leave you with this…Reese Witherspoon took in the Islanders game close to Hollywood wearing the team cap. Bend and Snap!
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