Good Morning, Islanders Country.
It was going to be the best win of the season.
Then it wasn’t.
Then, somehow, it was again.
After 58 minutes Monday night in Newark, the New York Islanders were writing their grittiest win of the year. They had survived two penalty kills. Kyle Palmieri, on the team’s lone power play of the night, had scored with just a few minutes left to give them a 2–1 lead over a New Jersey Devils team that hadn’t lost at home all season. And when the net emptied, they dug in — sticks in lanes, bodies in front of pucks, Ilya Sorokin turning aside everything that came his way.
It had the feel of a team stealing a signature win until it didn’t.
One offensive-zone faceoff. One point shot—one deflection. And suddenly, the Rock was rocking again, and the Islanders were reeling. What was about to be their best win of the season was seconds away from becoming just another night ending in the wrong kind of overtime — the “loser point” kind.
Then Mathew Barzal did what only Mathew Barzal can do.
